#Same-day Laundry Philadelphia

[laundry2run]

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Phone: +1 888-276-6336, +1 215-966-8679

We pickup and dropoff Dry Cleaning and Laundry for customer… Same as E.g Uber and Door Dash etc.

There’s nothing more dreadful and boring than doing laundry and dealing with Dry Cleaning, That’s a fact. Life’s too short for spending Precious time folding clothes or choosing detergents Etc. Modern Problems Require Modern Solutions , Laundry2Run is one of the biggest breakthrough in laundry for Regular Joe/Sarah since the discovery of the washing machine. Seriously. Now you can log on to our platform and sign up, better still download the Laundry2Run app, set your pick-up date, and we will pick up, wash, fold, and drop off your laundry. No-fuss, no hassle, no problem. Based in Philadelphia, PA, Laundry2Go takes all the fuss out of doing your laundry. What Makes Laundry2Run Stand Out? Laundry2Run gives you back your free time, Stop wasting your time washing, folding, Dry Cleaning etc. Stop dealing with washing machines, detergents, softeners, and high electric bills. Check laundry and Dry Cleaning off your to-do list with a single press of a button. And The Best Part? Laundry2Run offers you a faster, simpl!

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[upsidedownwithsteve]

Camp Eddie blurb where him and reader have been living together for a while now, but when they go back to camp, they're told they still have to be in separate cabins. Cue shenanigans of them struggling to sleep separately and/or struggling not getting caught sleeping together

“It’s not going to happen.”

“But—” Eddie frowned.

“You’re literally wasting your breath, Munson,” Murray was unbothered, sitting behind his desk as he flicked through stacks of paper. “I don’t care what kind of sick love nest you’ve both built in Philadelphia. It’s not happening.”

You tugged on Eddie’s hand, already embarrassed.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Eddie argued back. “We’re all adults here, it’s not like—”

“Rules are rules, kid. Leave if you don’t like ‘em.” Murray set you both with a stare over the rim of his glasses. “Michigan, I’d take your boy toy outta here before the chief gets back. He’s already in a bad mood.”

You tugged again, fingers twisted between Eddie’s and you felt him relent, if only a little. He was still scowling at Murray.

“Teddy,” you murmured softly, leading him towards the door in hopes he’d follow. The boy sighed and let you lead him, back out into the sun and heat. “C’mon, it’s fine.”

Eddie let you push yourself up against him, the camp still empty, the kids yet to arrive. You laced your hands behind his neck, pulled him down to you to kiss away the pout on his lips, toes dug into the line needles and dirt so you could reach.

“I don’t wanna be apart from you,” Eddie complained mournfully. “A whole six weeks? Baby, I’ll die.”

You grinned despite his dramatics, pushing little kisses to his cheek and jaw as he grumbled. “We’re gonna see each other all the time, Eddie,” you were soft about it, ‘cause the boy still looked distraught. “It’s just at night.”

He huffed, but wound his arms around your waist anyway, holding you close. “Yeah, but, when was the last time we didn’t fall asleep in the same bed, huh?”

You blinked, thinking. “Huh.”

“See!” Eddie cried out, vindicated.

A whole year had passed since you and Eddie had first met, ten months since you’d moved to Philly, six months since the boy had basically moved in. It happened unofficially, slowly and naturally, starting with a toothbrush beside yours and now, his guitar sat in your living room, your wardrobe half his, his records stacked neatly in the same bookcase that housed your sketchbooks.

You kissed him again. “It’s fine. We’ll manage.” Eddie looked doubtful and your voice held some uncertainty. “It’s just for six weeks.”

You did not manage.

In fact, you were the one to break first and it only took nine days. You had tossed and turned most nights, the bunk either too hot or too cold, your pillow not as comfortable as Eddie’s chest and you missed the way he made your sheets smell, his cologne mixed with your perfume, the laundry detergent from home, smoke and sweetness. You’d wake up most mornings too tired and grumpy, throwing yourself at your boyfriend at breakfast in the mess hall, in dire need of his touch before you could think about handling the kids for the rest of the day.

He was better than a shot of espresso.

On the ninth night, you swore into the darkness, giving up entirely as you stuffed your bare feet into your sneakers, grateful that Chrissy slept like she’d died. The cabin door squeaked as you left and the forest floor cracked and snapped in protest as you did your best to walk quietly over it, half running over the last bit of path that led you to Eddie’s cabin.

Maybe it was fate, maybe it was sheer luck, but there was still the soft glow of a light from one of the windows, hazy and bleeding out from behind the thin curtains. So you stood and knocked on the door, hoping it was Eddie and not Steve who was still up.

No such luck.

Steve opened the door, messy haired and shirtless, smirking when he saw you. “Honestly, I’m surprised it took this long.”

He stepped aside for you, not even shutting the door fully over as he pulled a hoodie on and grabbed his own pillow. He grinned when you pounced on Eddie, the book that had been laying on his chest falling to the floor as he startled awake.

“Shit, sweetheart,” Eddie gasped, but he quickly crushed you to his chest as he came to, head pushed into the crook of your neck as you squealed. “Hi.” He sounded so happy.

“Don’t be too loud,” Steve said, shoving his feet into boots that were definitely Eddie’s and not his. “You’ll get all of us in shit. You both owe me.”

Eddie snorted, grinning as you went about arranging yourself in the small bed beside him, a leg slung over his hip as he lifted an arm for you to settle into. “Don’t act high and mighty, Steven, as if you’re complaining about going to see your girl.”

“Yeah, Steven,” you added smugly, settling against Eddie’s bare chest.

Steve turned to stare at you both from the open doorway, eyebrows raised as the warm night air flooded the cabin, cicadas buzzing from all directions. “Hey,” he pointed at Eddie, accusatory. “I love her with all my heart, okay? But she’s like a feral raccoon at night. If I wake her up, she’s gonna kill me.”

“We thank you for your bravery,” Eddie replied solemnly, already busying himself with pushing his hands up the back of your shirt, humming at the expanse of warm skin and no bra straps to fight with.

“Your sacrifice is noted,” you added, too preoccupied to even look at the other boy, ‘cause Eddie was kissing a line down your neck.

Steve stared at you both blankly. “Fucking noted,” he murmured before turning away. “I want breakfast delivered in the morning. The good muffins. None of that bran shit.”

Neither you or Eddie heard him, but you both for the best sleep you’d had since arriving at camp that night

[popentertainmentconcertreviews]

Vonda Shepard – The Loft at City Winery – Philadelphia, PA – January 12, 2023

“Ain't it funny how you're walking through life, and it turns on a dime?”

That line isn’t just a lyric from Vonda Shepard’s 1996 song “The Wildest Times of the World,” but it was also somewhat prophetic towards her own career.

Shepard first popped up in the pop culture spotlight in 1987, when she had a top 10 single as part of a duet on the song “Can’t We Try” with balladeer Dan Hill. (This was a comeback single for Hill, who was best known for the 1978 smash “Sometimes When We Touch.”) Shepard was signed up with Warner Records, but her self-titled debut album didn’t sell as well as hoped and she was dropped from the label before her second album was released.

She released a couple of albums on the indie Vesper Alley label (1992’s The Radical Light and 1996’s It’s Good Eve), but it seemed like things were passing her by, until one day when actress Michelle Pfeiffer and her husband, television producer David E. Kelley, caught one of her gigs. At the time, Kelley was developing a new show about a quirky young lawyer named Ally McBeal. Kelley thought it would be an interesting idea to have a singer to bring musical voice to the young litigator’s inner turmoil. And he felt that Vonda Shepard would be the perfect person to be that voice.

Therefore, Shepard landed in a show that became (at least briefly) a pop culture zeitgeist. Shepard performed in pretty much every episode of the series’ five-season run as the singer at the Martini Bar in the same building as the law firm, performing a mixture of cover songs and some of Shepard’s originals. The song “Searchin’ My Soul” (originally from The Radical Light) became the series’ theme song and was a hit single.

Now 25 years on from Songs from Ally McBeal (who else is feeling old?), the first of four soundtrack albums of songs that Shepard recorded for the show, Shepard is on the road for a very brief US tour (three nights, three cities) celebrating the anniversary, as well as the release of her most recent album Red Light, Green Light.

This was the middle night of the east coast short trek. (She played in Annapolis, MD the night before, and was heading up to New York City the next night.) She mixed a good cross-section of her solo work and McBeal cover songs, although she did not sing her highest charting hit “Can’t We Try?” (Undoubtedly, she considers that Dan Hill’s song more than her own, even though she was a huge part of the hit recording.)

She brought along a crack backing band, made up of Tina Turner’s longtime guitarist James Ralston, Jackson Browne’s longtime drummer Mauricio Lewak and bassist Jim Hanson, who has played with the likes of Rodney Crowell and Bruce Springsteen.

She started the night with a few of the new songs (about three songs in she apologized to the Ally McBeal fans and said she’d get to those songs soon), doing soulful, passionate takes of “Shine Your Light,” “Red Light Green Light” and “Dirty Laundry Line” from the new album and “I Just Don’t Get It” from her 2015 album Rookie.

Soon she had worked her way to such fan favorites as “The Wildest Times of the World” and a drop-dead gorgeous cover of The Left Banke’s “Walk Away Renee.” She also did a sweet version of her wistful ballad “Maryland” and a gospel-tinged ride through “Sweet Inspiration” (originally recorded by the band The Sweet Inspirations).

She closed things out with a brace of Ally songs, hopping up from the piano for the only time of the night to do a playful cover of The Exciters’ “Tell Him,” torching the room with a raucous version of “Searchin’ My Soul” and then turning things down, closing out with a wistful and lovely take of the old Jo Stafford standard “You Belong to Me.”

Even though Shepard good-naturedly acknowledged in the middle of the set that her best-selling albums all had Calista Flockhart on their covers rather than her own picture, this show was a terrific reminder of the strong, interesting body of work that Vonda Shepard has been sharing with us for about 35 years.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2023 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: January 14, 2023.

Photos by Jay S. Jacobs © 2023

[therealvinelle]

Not the same anon but what about plain reshuffling the pairings? Not to fix them but just to see another mess, since the canon ones don't work I don't see why not put them with someone else that could be even worse 😂 so who would you put with who and why? And how would this make things worse?

Oh anon, you delightful person.

I think...

Edward and Carlisle

Edward, upon waking up, decides he wants to be Carlisle's lover. Carlisle is taken aback, oh this was not what he had in mind when he was thinking of a companion, at all. And Edward is so very young.

But he's very lonely, Edward is very insistent, and Carlisle did make this kid a vampire for his own sake.

Edward uses his gift to get inside Carlisle's head and manipulate him into sleeping with him.

In true It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia title card style, Carlisle sleeps with a minor.

Esme, Edward, and Carlisle polycule

Esme wakes up into this new life to find the beautiful doctor she loved since she was a child has given her immortality. She will get to live with him and his companion, a boy she immediately takes a liking to. "Is this your son?" she asks Carlisle pleasantly, and he grimaces. "Not quite," he says, but doesn't elaborate because... yes.

Esme and Edward bond, she starts to view him as a son and he sees her a mother, and Carlisle wonders when is the right time to tell her that he is in fact fucking said son. Which, given the time period Esme is from, and how very old Carlisle is while Edward would be a minor even if he was still human, is going to look like he's taking advantage.

("Aren't you?" a cursed voice in Carlisle's subconscious asks.)

Edward eventually comes to him, grinning, and tells him that Esme has feelings for him. Carlisle cries, because now he has to not only ruin himself in her eyes by telling her he's in fact banging a seventeen-year-old, but he has to reject her as well. Oh, this is terrible.

Edward suggests he simply not tell her. How would she find out?

Carlisle stares.

Edward goes on to explain that with his gift, if they're careful about it then they should be able to carry on their affair, they'll just have to be a little bit more discrete. Carlisle can marry her, and then they'll be happy together while Esme gets to mother Edward. Of course, Carlisle would have to step up to the father role in this scenario, but that shouldn't be a problem, yes?

He beams at Carlisle with all the confidence of a man who just came up with a fantastic plan.

Carlisle stares.

Alternatively, Edward could seduce Esme, he's pretty sure he could pull it off. Then there should be no trouble!

Carlisle breaks up with him.

Outraged, Edward leaves. If Carlisle won't be his anymore then to hell with it all, even the diet!

Carlisle and Esme

Esme and Carlisle are both terrible upset by this, and oh boy, now they're each other's solace. Their feelings for each other get that much stronger now that they're the only thing the other has.

Carlisle is falling for this woman. After he had sex with his last creation as well, he hates himself for this.

And more- he can't in good conscience get into a serious relationship with a good woman without being honest with her.

So, one day, he takes her aside, and gives her the "There's something I need to tell you about my past," opener.

Oh, okay. Esme is oddly disappointed but she figures it's to be expected that someone as old as Carlisle would have had his dalliances.

Only to be met with Carlisle telling her about how he had sex with the guy in the old paining, and, uh, his wife as well. It was a wild time.

(Because goddamnit, if he's going to come clean then he will come clean, Esme is getting every sock of Carlisle's dirty laundry)

He also... may have slept with Edward.

Now Esme's up.

Esme finds herself fighting the absurd urge to ask if Carlisle would have sex with Charles Evenson, given the chance. He wouldn't.

... or would he?

She agrees to be just friends with Carlisle, because boy did he give her something to think about.

(She'd be fine with it if it was just Aro, or just Sulpicia, or even just Edward, but- the haunting thought that Carlisle might go for it with Charles proves to be too much.

That, and she couldn't bear it if she married Carlisle Cullen, finally had the perfect husband, only to be cheated on. Carlisle apparently is promiscuous, and... she doesn't know if she could handle that. Scratch that, she knows she couldn't.)

Carlisle and Rosalie

A few years later, Carlisle comes upon Rosalie Hale, who has been raped and left to die in the streets. He doesn't even think about it, he brings her home to bite.

Esme sighs a weary sigh at the sight of this beautiful, young, blonde woman: clearly, Carlisle has grown tired of waiting.

Rosalie, on waking up, finds herself saved by this beautiful, single, man. The woman who was posing as his wife is in fact just a friend, but she seems to think Rosalie is to be his bride instead. Just as Esme was once supposed to be.

Carlisle gives no indication he's interested in Rosalie, and she's not sure how she feels about that. This man is insanely beautiful, he's kind, and she's so very alone in this brave new world that according to him consists of nothing but bloodthirsty demons.

Who, realistically, are her options?

She's depressed enough, and lonely enough, to start signaling at Carlisle. It's not even really about him, but about not being so damned lonely all the time.

Carlisle still can't believe he had an affair with Edward, so sure. He can do this.

Rosalie and Emmett

She finds a beautiful man dying in the woods, brings him home for reasons not altogether clear to her.

She waits by a river with Edward, and wonders who this man will be to her. Could they become-

She tentatively allows herself to hope.

ALAS

Esme and Emmett

Esme comes to adore this bright-eyed young man who always makes her laugh, and she seeks him out. Emmett, on his end, develops feelings for this sweet and warm yet hopelessly melancholic woman. Esme is rocking those damsel vibes, yo.

Rosalie is hot! Very hot!

But, goddamnit, something wins out in Emmett and he decides to make Esme happy or so help him god.

(That, and learning that Rosalie fucked Carlisle is--

Carlisle?!

Emmett's not sure what to do with that one.)

Alice and Edward

Alice had it all sorted out.

On waking up to this new life, she saw Jasper's face, she saw the Cullens, she knew where she would have to go to find him and then find her family. It was going to be great.

A few decades and much whoring shenanigans later, and Edward is now eating rapists and crying in San Francisco while Carlisle bangs is out with his would-be daughter because- Alice doesn't even know, what the fuck.

She realizes that if she wants to get everyone in one place, perhaps not fucking the right people but at least in the same place-

She has to entice Edward back to them. More, she has to distract him from Carlisle.

So she seeks him out, tells him she has seen them together, for her gift is to be Sybil. This is a great love, Edward. And through it, you will see Carlisle again (the trick is to make him think he's got a shot without actually promising anything).

Alice, Edward and Jasper polycule

Well, the OG plan is off.

What we're left with is...

"Hi! I'm Alice! I have the solution to all your problems. Come with me and Edward!"

Because goddamnit, Alice's visions were set that she would be with Jasper, and just because the plan had to deviate some doesn't mean she's giving up on it.

Jasper is too depressed to say no.

Edward wants to prove to Carlisle that this can work and he was a fool to turn down the E&E&C wonderfulness all those years ago.

Carlisle and Jasper

The polycule is nominal only, in reality Alice is with Edward and Jasper is the afterthought.

Carlisle feels bad for him.

Bella and Carlisle

Somehow, Bella ends up entangled with the Cullens despite all that's changed, and she is once again set to become a vampire.

Trouble is, she wants her human experience first.

Carlisle sighs, but unzips. He has accepted his fate as the Cullen family whore.

Rosalie and Carbella lovechild

A child is born from Bella and Carlisle's sting in the jacuzzi.

A child that is sent with Rosalie to live someplace far, far, away, because THIS HOUSE IS A DEN OF SIN. RUN, MY SON.

Rosalie has no intentions of sleeping with her nephew/stepson/?? but goddamnit, after all the incest she's on high alert.

Bonus: Aro and Carbella lovechild

Aro runs across an utterly beautiful young man who looks eerily like Carlisle. The man may have a funky heartbeat (a new species?! EXCITING), and Caius may judge him forever, but damnit, Aro's heading over to flirt.

Carbella lovechild laughs and giggles, and Aro nods to himself, you know what, this kid is great. Might be time to fool around with someone not Carlisle, you know?

He touches Carbella lovechild's hand.

And dies.

Perhaps the worst of all is learning that Carlisle has a harem family now.

[dameronology]

6 from the angst prompts with frank please🤲🏾

frank castle + 6) "why does my mind go back to when you used to hold me?"

ok. i'm gonna be real with you. this started by following the prompt, then it...it went somewhere else entirely. but we move.

You should have been happy in your lover's arms.

Anyone else in the world would have been fucking elated; wrapped up in a blanket on the sofa with a five-foot-eleven guy, with his ginger tousled hair and broad arms. Your first date together had been a favour to your sister, but you'd never found a reason to stop seeing him. After all, he looked after you. Texting you to make sure you got home safe, bringing you lunch at work, fixing your broken kitchen cabinet in your shitty little apartment. He was nice. Too nice. He was a sensible t-shirt made out of husband material.

So what did that make Frank Castle? The leather jacket that your parents had forbade you from buying? The stupidly ripped jeans that made your relatives ask dId yOu bUy tHeM lIke tHat?

But truthfully, there was no stupid, cliche metaphor for Frank Castle. He was absolutely indescribable; a walking contradiction, a fucking confusion. He was rough and soft and giving and taking all at once. He stole the air from the lungs and breathed it right back into you; stole the show, but never came out from behind the curtains. He'd ruined your life for twelve straight months and yet, you looked back on that year as the best time of your life.

Frank was gone now - gone to the wind, wherever his next crime took him. You still thought of him, though. Constantly. About how your new boyfriend's arms didn't hold you as tight; about how his hair was a lot softer than Frank's, and didn't scratch you in the same way his did whenever he buried his head in your neck. His hands weren't as large and protective. He didn't make you black coffee every morning - oat lattes and fancy cappuccinos, yeah. But not the shitty, sugarless crap that Frank served to you in a chipped Coney Island mug every day at 7AM. The new guy cared enough to walk you home, but not enough to elbow his way into your apartment at 3AM because he'd heard sirens four blocks away and panicked. Frank Castle had had a weird way of loving you - and now, everyone else's attempts at it paled in comparison.

Like I said before - anyone else would have been infatuated with the new man sat beside you. Admittedly, you'd only found one problem with him.

He wasn't Frank.

"I'm just going to make some tea," you said. "I'll be back in a second."

The auburn man looked at you. "Should I pause the movie?"

"It's okay, I've seen it before," you forced a smile.

Shrugging off the blanket, you stood up and stalked through to the kitchen. It was a separate room from your living area - Frank had always given you spiel about how cramped it felt. But the minute you spotted a pair of combat boots on the fire escape? You were just thankful for the privacy it now gave you from the man you should have been falling in love with.

Hopping up on the counter, you slid open the window and stuck one leg out onto the metal stairs. Frank naturally leant forward to help you, a large handing wrapping around your wrist and pulling you up. The sky was pitch black, lit only by the starry facade of the Lower East Side. Hell's Kitchen was beautiful from this angle - probably because the man who constantly tore it to pieces was stood on your fire escape.

"You look like shit," you greeted him. It was true; his hair was cropped and neat, and he was clean shaven like usual, but there was a fucking massive shiner on his left eye.

"So do you," Frank shot back. "Who the fuck does that t-shirt belong to?"

"None of your business," you said.

"It belongs to your ginger friend, doesn't it?" he deduced. "What's his name?"

"Again - none of your business."

"Fine. I'll just call him Ron, then."

"Okay, Frank," you huffed. "Why are you turning up on my fire escape at 1AM and giving me spiel about Harry Potter?"

"I was just checking in," he shrugged. "Am I not allowed to do that anymore?"

"No."

"Fine," he held his hands up in defence. "But I know you're thinking about me."

"I'm not thinking about you," you countered. "In fact, the first person I think of when I hear the name Frank is Frank Reynolds from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia."

"You're a terrible liar, sweetheart," he reminded you.

"It's true. I really love Danny Devito-"

You abruptly stopped talking when Frank grabbed you by the waist, pulling you towards him. Your lips crashed against his - warm and familiar and chapped - in a passionate kiss. Time might as well have fucking stopped in that moment. It was a feeling you'd craved for so long; begged for, prayed to every god you believed in and even those you didn't.

"You love me more," Frank murmured. "More than the man inside."

"Frank," you murmured.

"Just say it," he pushed. "I know you love me - not him."

"Is that why you came back?" you asked. "Because you were worried I'd found someone else?"

"I came back because I missed you," he confessed.

"You went upstate to get away from all this," you half-heartedly gestured to the city below.

"And I came back for all this," he gestured to you with a large hand. "It's nothing to do with you being with someone else. It doesn't mean I don't want to left hook the guy for putting his hands on you, but..."

Frank trailed off. You, meanwhile, were still in disbelief. It had taken so much effort to move on; to force his remaining belongings into a box under your bed. Even more so to let another man in to said bed.

In a swift movement, he'd taken off his hoodie and pulled it over your shoulders. The zip was done up in mere seconds, thick hood pulled over your head. It smelt of Frank - domestic Frank, not I've gone bat-crap crazy on a gang in the middle of the night and come back looking like the prom scene in Carrie Frank. It was a mixture of cheap laundry detergent and a little of his spicy aftershave. He rarely wore the stuff, but you deducted he probably put it on for tonight. What kind of fucking weirdo put on expensive aftershave just to creep around on his former lover's balcony? Frank. The answer was Frank. Just...quintessentially him.

"You really hate the look of me in his clothes, huh?" you teased.

"You looked cold," Frank lied. "Does Ron give you his hoodies?"

"He'd give me his damn wardrobe if I asked."

He snorted. "Yeah, okay. I'm glad to see you that you still enjoy dancing around important conversations-"

"- you know I love you, Frank," you cut him off. "But I'm not skipping into the fucking sunset with you at 1AM when it's freezing as shit outside. Especially not when there's a man on my couch, who thinks I'm making a cup of tea when I'm actually kissing a man out on the fire escape."

"I love you too," Frank gave you a lopsided grin, completely ignoring the second half of what you said. "I'll come back in the morning."

"Yeah, okay," you pressed another kiss to his jaw. "See you then."

You slipped your hands away from Frank's, sliding your legs back through the window and onto the kitchen counter. Leaping off the side, you shut the window and reached to turn on the kettle - you did have the whole cup of tea lie to keep up with.

And with a smile on your face, you reached for the chipped Coney Island mug on your shelf.

[lyledebeast]

I’m seeing these great gifsets of Abigail, Akinbode, and Cicero in Turn Week gifsets, and they’re reminding me of how much I love these characters.  But they’re also reminding me of how dirty they’re done by the storyline.

To the Turn writers’ credit, they do try to portray these formerly enslaved characters with some complexity, to avoid simply using them to shore up the righteousness of White men like, uh, other representations of the American Revolution.  But Abigail and Cicero’s investment in the Patriot cause leaves a lot wanting in terms of making sense.  The deal Abigail makes with Anna Strong is that she will spy on Major Andre--”I’ll do your laundry in New York”--in exchange for Anna looking after Cicero in Setauket.  That Abigail believes she has to put her own life in constant danger in order to ask this considerably less perilous favor of Anna says very little for their relationship or Anna herself.  This is not an equal exchange; Cicero is under no direct threat while in Setauket, and that has little to do with Anna’s protection.  Separated from her husband, she has little power to protect even herself.

And yet, when Cicero joins his mother as a member of Andre’s household in Philadelphia, does she step out of her dangerous role now that it is no longer necessary?  Nope! Now there are TWO Patriot spies in the same house, and the best reason the writers give us is that Cicero wants to “help Miss Anna.”  This is possibly the closest Turn veers in a Patriot-ward direction.  Cicero wants to risk his life every hour of every day because a White person was comparatively nice to him? And his very clever and practical mother is okay with this? . . . Alright.

Akinbode’s storyline makes more sense.  His consistent goal, once he sets one, is to get Abigail and Cicero and taken them to Canada.  He is never a Patriot, and he’s only playing a role as a Queen’s Ranger.  He seems to appreciate the power it gives him and the fact that Simcoe, in spite of being a bloodthirsty lunatic, treats him with more respect than any other White man ever does.  But when he gets a chance to get away, he doesn’t look back. If we’re being very generous to the writers, there is something refreshing about Akinbode being free and on his way to Canada with half of the family he wants without having had to earn his reward with Patriot sympathies.  However, that possibility is immediately soured when Abigail, who has given more than Akinbode and Cicero to the Patriot cause, is the most hurt by the war’s outcome.

Turn is honest very early on about the reality than no longer being enslaved did not make Black people free.  The only agency any of these characters have is what they take for themselves, but some of their choices are difficult to fathom.  Of course, there were Black Patriots, and their service having been forgotten SO quickly after American Independence is all the more reason to remember it now.  I’m not sure what is the best way for film and television to do that; I do think it begins with Black writers and directors telling those stories.  And it’s very likely that, if we’re going to do justice to the sacrifices Black Patriots made, we need to let go of the idea that White Patriots deserved them.

[imaginesandinserts]

Irreverent Pt. 50 - House of Cards

Title: Irreverent Pt. 50 - House of Cards

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Reader Rating: M Words: ~4K

A/N: Picking up after Chapter 48: Strings That Bind

Irreverent Series Masterlist

The most painful goodbyes are the ones left unsaid.

Officially the two of you were broken up.

Unofficially, your dresses were still hung up in your side of the closet. Smiling photographs of you, Aaron, and Jack still adorned the house. The scent of the spring meadow laundry detergent you bought still permeates his senses anytime he puts on fresh clothes. You persist in every nook and cranny of his life – in your handwritten grocery list on the fridge that he hasn't the heart to toss away, in the sass and eyerolls he gets from Jack to the heartwrenchingly sweet way he insists on being kissed good night exactly how you do it – once on the forehead, pause, then another for the long haul of the night, and in the way Aaron's mind wanders, unwantingly, to you and always you –  thinking about you, wondering if you're alright, hoping to see you again soon.

That night when he'd arrived back home with Dave in tow, he'd found out from Jack that you'd visited him during lunch. You'd brought food for the two of you and you'd sat and ate with him and his friends. You'd watched him play before pulling him aside quickly and telling him that you'd be away for a while. Explaining that it would be hard for you to talk to him, but that you'd see him as soon as you were back. Aaron could imagine you'd also told Jack that you loved him, holding him close to you. It filled him with a small amount of confidence, knowing that you'd gone to see Jack and promised that you'd see him as soon as you were done with your assignment. It led credence to Rossi's assertion that whatever was going on had nothing to do with you and Aaron and everything to do with whatever you were doing with Easter for the project.

However, despite inherently knowing that it had been something else, being home without you – in the aftermath of having signed what had felt like his second set of divorce papers – wasn't the easiest of tasks. Two days after, he'd come home to the monthly crate of champagne that you'd never quite bothered to dissuade Cedric Kensington from sending your way. It was an agonizing reminder – you had not always been his. He'd ended up calling Prentiss and asking if she'd take it off of his hands, and she of course had jumped at the opportunity. She'd arrived in a whirlwind, greeting Jack with a quick kiss to the cheek and asking Aaron when he expected you back home. He was forced to simply shrug and say you hadn't said when you'd be available once more, deciding it was best to keep the full extent of what had transpired to himself and Dave, at least until they were able to learn more.

At various points during the days following, he debated making his way to McKinney's office. He took the elevator all the way up before talking himself out of it. You wouldn't appreciate interference with your professional life and this was hardly a qualifying emergency. On top of which, he would only be operating in the capacity of your partner. Which, in all technicality and as far as the Bureau was concerned, he no longer even was. He had absolutely no professional reasons to inquire about your whereabouts and the realization of it all – knowing exactly how tied his hands are – has him feeling distressingly unanchored.

You torment him. You are the plague that runs through him. Every unoccupied minute, you're at the forefront. That final interaction with you plays on a loop in his mind. He knows that something had happened, that something was wrong. Your entire demeanor had been distraught and pulled taut at the edges, your body sending warning signals to him despite your inability to voice your hardships. It plays over and over again in his mind's eye. How your own weight had seemed far too much to bear upon your frame. How the mere act of standing up had been a Herculean effort of its own. How you had flinched, cowering and shielding yourself from him when he'd reached out – as though his touch might cause you harm.

He knows now that he should've said something. Done something. He'd known. He had known that there was something the matter and despite knowing that so absolutely, he had elected to adhere to the professional boundaries the two of you had, allowing it to overrule his innate gut instinct that something was incredibly wrong.

The team had completed two cases in the span of a week and a half, during which it had been radio silence from you. No calls. No texts. At this point, he'd settle for a carrier pigeon.

Jack asked about you, however given that Aaron didn't have much to share, he was only able to reassure his son that you were alright (he hoped) and that you'd be home very soon.

*------------*

It was closing in on twelve days since Aaron had last seen or heard from you. The team was seated in the conference room as Garcia went through the list of consults that had been piling up. The team tried to stay on top of those in between active in-person cases, however things had fallen off with the last minute shuffle when Garcia had been suspended. She'd come back and had decided to take charge, using her downtime to reorganize and allocate everyone's time to each consult, ensuring that each case would have two pairs of eyes looking over it.

She was flipping through the cases one by one on the screen and everyone was volunteering to take whichever struck their interest. Aaron would look over all of them at the end, so he was paying close attention to each one as Garcia went through the case summaries.

As she transitions from a case in North Dakota to another in Arkansas, a loud alert appears on the screen along with everyone's work phones. A year ago, the Bureau had invested in the same alert system that many state and city governments used to send out community alerts. It helped get mass messages through quickly and prioritized any key threats. Aaron pulls out his own phone that is vibrating incessantly, to a message reading *TERROR ALERT: PHILADELPHIA, ONE BOMB CONFIRMED* on the screen.

Everyone looks up at him, and he's ready to dismiss it, turn focus back to the task at hand. The team hasn't been asked to weigh in and there are agents and local law enforcement in Philadelphia who will handle it. There's another loud alert, however, this time only on Garcia's computer, which is connected to the large screen. Her brow furrows as she turns away from him and to her computer, her fingers moving quickly as she investigates the reason behind the second alert.

Aaron follows her progress on the big screen, and sees her open a program with the entire team's internal Bureau profile. There's a red alert notification next to your name, which she clicks on. His heartrate picks up immediately as he watches with rapt attention. He can feel everyone else in the room tense, their eyes following the screen as well. It's quiet, the only sound coming from Garcia's computer running, the fans spinning loudly. There's a lag while the program appears to run and then he sees it automatically go to the newly opened case file for the Philadelphia terror case.

A video pops up on the screen. It appears to be from an internal security camera. A jazz club, from the looks of it. There's a singer on a stage and tables turned to face it. Couples are sat at each of the table. The camera pans slowly, giving a full view of the restaurant as all attention is towards the stage.

"Is that – ?"

Aaron starts at JJ's voice, having seen what she'd seen. There you were, seated at a table, dressed like you were out for a date. Your hair is done nicely, there's a jacket draped over your shoulders. You look better. Far better than the last time he'd seen you. He recognizes Easter sitting next to you, his arm casually thrown around your chair as you lean into his side slightly. Your faces are turned towards one another, a small smile on yours as the two of you whisper something to one another. Aaron looks up at Reid, who shakes his head. He can't make out what you're saying.

The camera keeps panning, and as you leave the frame, Aaron is harshly reminded of which case this video is tied to. It pans over the rest of the restaurant. Slowly. Silently. He can feel a growing tension in his body as his eyes stay firm on the screen. Daring it to confirm what he already fears. His breath starts to come in bursts as the camera pans to the end before turning once more, turning back towards where you'd been seated. Slowly. Too slowly. He needs to see you again. He needs to see your face again. His chest starts to constrict at the mounting realization of what's about to happen.

The camera continues to turn. He sees the singer. The other customers. There's a waiter carrying a tray full of drinks. Almost there. Almost back to you.

The screen goes black.

*------------*

Rossi and Morgan watch Hotch in his office as he takes yet another call, trying to get in touch with the field agent in charge of the Philadelphia case for what felt like the tenth time. He'd already spoken to the man once and had been told that they hadn't started excavation yet and it was impossible to tell how many bodies were buried underneath the rubble that hadn't been touched yet. All he had learned was that you weren't amongst the five individuals in the hospital.

Rossi had had to talk Hotch out of storming to Philadelphia himself. He couldn't do anything to help. On the off chance he did find you and you were alright, he'd get in the way of your assignment and risk blowing your cover. Him barging in wasn't the right call.

The mood within the team had ranged from tense to downright hysterics. Derek had had to take Penelope into another room with JJ following him. She'd been inconsolable, thinking back to the last interaction she'd had with you. Derek hadn't been able to fully comfort her and had left her with JJ so he could go figure out what to do next with Hotch.

He'd walked past the conference room where Prentiss was still sat with Reid. She'd been oddly quiet ever since and he knew she felt the same guilt he did. They'd both given you the cold shoulder when you'd appeared last time, and it had only been afterwards that they'd learned that it had been to bring over Penelope's reinstatement paperwork. That day, he'd caught a glimpse of you as you'd walked away towards the elevators and he couldn't help but notice that there was something off with the way you were carrying yourself. He knows how you move and it looked like you were compensating for something.

Hours pass as the team tries to distract themselves with the consults in lieu of having nothing better to do. Penelope had told Hotch that she had put out alerts for everything related to you - the video had been caught by her facial recognition software. She'd put out an alert for any mention of you, for your phone turning on, for Easter's phone turning on. Everything and anything she could think of. He'd thanked her robotically and Derek could tell what he was doing. He needed to distance himself if he was going to make it.

So Derek sat there with Rossi. Sat and waited as Hotch watched the phone, willing it to ring with any news of you.

*------------*

Aaron woke up from a fitful sleep to the sound of his phone dinging. Groggily, he goes to pick it up and sees Morgan's name on the screen followed by a message.

Meet at Rossi's ASAP.

His brow furrows as he looks at the time. It was only six in the morning, so for Morgan to be asking to meet at Dave's, it could only mean one thing. It had something to do with you.

He calls Mrs. Avery as he gets dressed, asking her if she could please come a little earlier to watch Jack. Something in his voice must've convinced her of the urgency of his need, and she's quick to agree. Thinking ahead, Aaron asks that she pack for a few days, just in case.

He doesn't bother with waking Jack up. He hadn't been able to hide his inner turmoil from his son at dinner the night prior, and Jack had picked up on the fact that something wasn't quite right. Aaron had been forced to lie to him and assure him that it was nothing. He didn't want to say anything to Jack. Not yet when nothing was confirmed.

There's this part of him that's convinced you're invincible. That nothing could possibly touch you. That part refuses to believe any of this is real. He's seen you take down grown men twice your size. He's seen you be held at gunpoint and still come out unscathed. Deep down, he knows that he's in denial of some sort. Refusing to believe in the possibility that you could be – .

He's felt the worried eyes of the entire team on him, and yet he knows that they're all on the same page as him. Nothing was confirmed. None of them will voice the awful prospect that maybe you hadn't gotten away. That maybe you're lying there, buried under bricks and concrete. That you're gone. That you're d–

Aaron won't.

He owes Jack that. He owes his son that.

His son does not deserve to lose another mother.

So, Aaron won't. As far as he is concerned, you are fine and you will be home soon, just as you promised Jack before you left. You will come home and the three of you will wake up together the next morning. He will kiss you good morning even as you squirm against him and beg for another five minutes, sleepily kissing him back despite that. You'll go downstairs and make pancakes and Aaron will swipe a blueberry as you swat his hand away. Jack will hoist himself up on the counter – another bad habit he's picked up from you – and he'll watch the cartoons playing on the living room television while ensuring that there are exactly the right number of blueberries in his pancakes. At some point, Aaron will put on one of the older records and the three of you will badly sing along to Elvis. You'll be back and the house will be full – of voices and music, yours and Jack's laughter, and that bright and bubbly feeling of being vibrantly alive. The feeling he only ever has around you.

*------------*

Aaron arrives at Rossi's place, pulling into the driveway behind Prentiss. Judging by the cars, it appeared most – if not all – of the team was already there. Reid still refused to drive so someone must've picked him up on the way. He makes a mental note to have you talk to Reid about the driving thing, since you'd had to get over that fear after your accident as well. He knew that had been a process.

Dave is quick to let him in upon his knock, leading him to the large living room where everyone is assembled. It appeared Garcia had set herself up at the dining table and she had a slew of machines running side by side.

"What's going on?" Aaron asks, gratefully accepting the cup of coffee that JJ hands him.

"We were waiting for you to get here. Garcia has something," Morgan answers, nodding back towards Garcia, who on second glance, looked like she hadn't slept whatsoever. Aaron felt for her and he nods, imploring her to take the lead.

"Sir, you might remember, back when Y/N was working with me, I taught her how to do a few things. We worked together a lot and I had her practice, on a private server," she explains hesitantly, as though trying to gauge his reaction before she went on. He knew the team was on edge and they're all waiting for him to break down. Frankly, he's surprised himself by how much he'd held it together, but knows that he's still operating from a place of refusal. Refusal to believe reality.

He nods, so she continues. "A couple hours ago, an email appeared in my private server. From me."

"From you?" His eyebrows rise up in question.

"Yes sir. The only other person who's ever been inside this server besides myself, is Y/N. She's the only one with access. The email wasn't actually sent today. It was sent a couple of weeks ago, but it appeared today, as if someone had stopped hiding it."

"That's possible?" Prentiss asks, her face mirroring Aaron's in confusion.

"Yes. Essentially it was being suppressed by a program that's on a timed manual cycle. As long as someone logged in and ran the action to suppress, the email stayed hidden. Once no one was running the job, the email was no longer hidden and I could see it."

"What's in the email?" Aaron asks, a sense of foreboding creeping in. If you had indeed set it up, it meant that you'd missed your last check-in to suppress the email.

"It's a backdoor, sir. Into the Project Atlantis server. Y/N set it up so that it looks like she's the one entering and looking around at the files and not me, so no alarms will go off."

"She left a backdoor open on a timed cycle in case she didn't check-in, to alert us. We have to assume that it's a signal for us to intervene." Aaron turns, oddly heartened by Morgan's assertion, and nods along. You didn't do things like this without innate purpose.

"What've you found so far?" he asks, moving to stand and walk over to Garcia's side.

She pivots the screen so he can see and also moves to project it onto the large television screen in the center of the living room. "Not much yet, there's far too much material to go through. In summary, I've gathered that Project Atlantis was geared towards keeping ex NATO spooks safe - CIA, Interpol, MI6, those kinds. They'd get new covers and would be safe to resume a normal civilian life. Sort of like witness protection for retired spies. A few years ago, every few months some of them started to go missing. Y/N was part of the task force trying to figure out who was leaking the names and locations and trying to figure out who is going after them. I'm printing out all the files for the good doctor to read through."

Aaron nods, following along. It would figure that this would be the sort of assignment you're on. From the sound of it, you're on a witch hunt. There's a leak that you're trying to plug.

"That's good work, thank you Garcia."

"Of course, sir. I also found something else while I was poking around in the Atlantis servers. There's a partitioned section that I don't think Y/N was ever in. It appears to be someone's private server within the server."

"Likely Easter's," Rossi injects, his face still set grimly.

"Yes sir. Once I break into that, we might know some more. Maybe more than Y/N knew, if he wasn't forthcoming about everything with her."

"If they suspected a leak, neither one of them would fully trust the other," Prentiss speculated from her spot perched on the arm of the sofa, mug of coffee precariously balanced beside her.

"There's a chance they thought each other was the leak," Reid postulates, tipping back in the chair he's seated in, in a manner entirely reminiscent of you.

Aaron agrees with them both, before considering the graver implications of you sending this to Garcia's private server. "Since Y/N sent this to the private server, we have to assume she thinks she and the team are being watched in some capacity. That there is someone on the inside of the Bureau who could also be the mole."

The team looks at him, their faces sober as everyone realizes that, as of now, they're operating outside the confines of the Bureau. None of this is sanctioned. All of it is grounds to be fired or charged.

"None of you have to – "

"Hotch, none of us are going anywhere," Morgan cuts him off, already knowing where he was going. "Y/N doesn't just matter to you. Right now, we don't know where she is, but we know that she left something for us for a reason. We're going to follow through on that. She'd do it for any one of us."

Aaron can only nod as he looks around the room at the rest of them agreeing with Morgan. They were all just as much your family as he was.

"I'm in!" Garcia's excited voice breaks the somber camaraderie of the room, drawing everyone's attention back to the screen as Reid gets up to grab the papers being spit out by the printer.

They watch as she sifts through the files, quickly identifying most as duplicates of the Atlantis server, before coming across a larger folder with videos. Scrolling through, the thumbnail images appear to be brightly lit training videos. He can make out images of you and Easter sparring together as she moves through the files.

The thumbnail at the end catches his eye, however. It is darker than the rest, and Aaron is quick to ask Garcia to open that one.

"It looks like it was uploaded about two weeks ago," Garcia says, working to open the video and project it onto the television. Aaron quickly does the math in his head – two weeks prior would put it right before he last saw you. The team moves to the main area, with only Garcia and Reid remaining at the dining table.

Garcia hits play on the video and a darkened room becomes visible. The hair on the back of his neck stands on edge almost immediately.

"What is this, a snuff film?" Dave questions, leaning further towards the screen, his brows raised in alarm.

Prentiss scoffs, her eyes full of worry. "Wouldn't put it past him. He was always a bit of a weirdo when it came to that stuff."

"You speaking from personal experience?" Morgan looks at her, his eyebrows raised, arms crossed across his chest.

"Gross, never," she responds, rolling her eyes.

Aaron remains turned towards the screen. There's a low hanging yellow light above a desk where a man stands and in the center of the room, tied to a chair, is a horrifyingly familiar figure.

"Please tell me that isn't – " Garcia's voice trembles as she voices what was coursing through all of their minds.

It was you.

[honestsportsopinion]

New York Rangers and the situations they are in

Disclaimer: This essay or article, call it as you wish, is my own information analysis. I am in no way sports journalist or try to be one. All the sources will be linked bellow.  

           Idea to write this thing came from my close friend and I thought: “Why the hell not?” Once I started the research, I realised it will not be easy to put this together because so much information has come up in last few weeks and more has happened in last few days. So, this may seem messy. I will talk about points about New York Rangers that I took closer look to.

           Possibly, New York Ranger fans can better pinpoint the moment when things started to go south in their team. When rookie development was thrown out of window and the youngsters got left to fend for themselves without help. When did racist players got given one chance after another? It must have been painful to see such good team and organisation to dissolve in what it is now. Yes, it is kind of hard to call them team right now.

           First, want to start with this interview quote from ex-New York Rangers player Kevin Hayes, conducted in 2019, that prompted me to look a bit further in this whole situation:

"They chose to get rid of me and Vese, but that's their decision," Hayes said. "I'm sure it'll come back to them; we'll find out."

Not only New York Rangers got rid of Kevin Hayes and Jimmy Vessey, but next season Brady Skjei followed his friends off to a different team. Few seasons ago this trio was in grace of the organisation but now they are out of it. No one still understands how that happened. If we highlight this quote from Mr. Hayes, we can see that there was some bitterness over whole situation, that even the best media training could not mask. Also, we could say that words in it is quite prophetic. It will come back to them he said and oh, how it did come back to this team. Starting one whirlwind after another.

           Secondly, I want to talk about development and treatment of younger players that come to New York Rangers organisation. We all well know how K’Andre Miller got welcomed in this team with livestream chat absolutely being flooded with racist comments. It is all still fresh in our minds and we will come back to K’Andre Miller a bit later.

           Lias Andersson was young player with bright future, being drafted as 7th overall in 2017 entry draft. His story also is not best: for three seasons being thrown between AHL and NHL, allowed to play few games for New York Rangers. In no way the team tried to build up his confidence. Of course, it is not easy to be treated as moving piece. When you are as young as 18, you need to feel backed up by the team you got drafted. After these years of up and down in USA, Mr. Andersson choose to go back home to Sweden.

           Now we have Finish player Kaapo Kakko in similar situation.  Absolutely not feeling backing of team or coach who in recent press conference said this:

 “He’s got seven points in his last seven NHL games and what can happen in this game is we get so caught up in where they were drafted and the hype about people.  I don’t give two craps about that.  We want to win hockey games and he was the best option.  How’d it work out?”

While in the same interview he praised the No. 1 draft pick Alexis Lafrenière. I am in no way pitting those two against one another, but coach should be one person that stays unbiased no matter what and helps players find their rooting in team. From this interview it feels like he already has view on Mr. Kakko and does not want to change his opinion on him.

           Right here in me could start talking hurt European but I am not going to step as low as David Quinn because I have general understanding about different nationalities that react to things differently. All I can say is I wish Kaapo to find team that will give him the rooting he needs, but also knowing Finns he will try to fight for his place.

           Lastly, we must mention the name of player that has worst possible reputation in NHL, so bad that none of 30 teams want to take him of the waivers. You guessed it folks: Tony DeAngelo. Yes, finally New York Rangers are getting rid of this player, but should he have been called up at all. By the words of New York Rangers general manager Jeff Gorton:

“We did a lot of research, talked to a lot of people about Tony prior to acquiring him,” Gorton said. “We did our homework, we were comfortable[..].”

Looking from outside of it all, it seems they did none of the research and DeAngelo could do whatever he wanted to do. Team even promoted his podcast, that does not put out best message to anyone. We can also talk about his twitter and Instagram tantrums that have hurt more people than not. Organisation says they talked with DeAngelo, but nothing seemed to work, even the tiny suspensions that he was getting. DeAngelo felt like he had his teams backing, that no players we talked before in this essay have felt. Craziest thing is that he just recently resigned with the team, they still believed in him.

           So DeAngelo took it as a sign to stretch their trust even thinner. There is alleged news that he stole K’Andre Millers first goal puck. New York Rangers are trying to cover it up, but fans are more attentive. There was not picture of K’Andre holding his puck while the New York Rangers posted Lafrenière with his puck. The team can come out with statements about this whole thing, but they cannot stop the windmill of news sharing.

          Whole thing culminated in altercation between DeAngelo and Georgiev. This finally got organisation into gear, booting DeAngelo off the team fully. Scariest thought is that New York Rangers would have kept this under wraps, too, not to spoil their team’s name. It got out and this time easiest choice was to fire DeAngelo. As easily they trusted him, as easily they let him go. Maybe it is fresh breath of air that this team needs, maybe this situation will raise up more dirty laundry but what is done is done. There is no way back and only way forward.

Conclusion.

           New York Rangers as organisation do not seem to understand how to develop young players and make them in star players anymore while their history shows that they can do that. As organisation they have let down many of their players and fans who believed in them, allowing racists and bigots play in the team freely without huge consequences. Yes, people will go and say they fired DeAngelo. I will answer them: “Good but where were they before when they could have chosen not to call him up. Signs were there already.”

           We can see that they choose easiest way, forgetting that team is supposed to be family where each player is ready to stand and fall for one another. Generally, I wish New York Rangers to find the light in the end of a tunnel. Find their way back to developing young players to proper stars and not to make any dumb mistakes.

Sources:

Abate, B. (14.01.2021.). Rangers Must Learn from Mistakes Made with Andersson. Retrieved from https://thehockeywriters.com/rangers-lias-andersson-development-mistakes-learning-opportunity/

Cuthbert, J. (31.01.2021.). Rangers waive controversial Tony DeAngelo after reported altercation with teammate. Retrieved from https://tinyurl.com/i4jox6v9

NBC. (21.09.2019.). Interview with Kevin Hayes. Retrieved from https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/flyers/kevin-hayes-honest-about-his-time-rangers-ecstatic-be-flyers

New York Rangers. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Rangers#Jeff_Gorton_era_(2015%E2%80%93present)

Paulus, S. (31.01.2021.). David Quinn must dislike Kaapo Kakko a lot. Retrieved from https://bluelinestation.com/2021/01/29/new-york-rangers-coach-david-quinn-must-dislike-kaapo-kakko-a-lot/

Valji, S., N. (31.01.2021). Future of Tony DeAngelo (Twitter thread). Retrieved from https://twitter.com/salimvalji/status/1355968550393901056

Walker, M. (16.01.2021.). Rangers bench star Tony DeAngelo for game against Islanders. Retrieved from https://nypost.com/2021/01/16/tony-deangelo-not-in-rangers-lineup-for-game-vs-islanders/

Walker, M. (01.02.2021.). Rangers refute ‘sad’ K’Andre Miller rumor after banishing Tony DeAngelo. Retrieved from https://nypost.com/2021/02/01/rangers-refute-kandre-miller-rumor-amid-tony-deangelo-saga/

[baby-grayson]

Kind Stranger| Part 2|GBD

Read Part 1 Here

 Word Count: 2.8k (teeny tiny)

Trigger Warning: quarantine talk Tags (Thank you to the amazing dumpling that taught me how to do this!!): @evergreendolan​ @someonetogray​ @vintagedolan​ A/N: Thank you to everyone who gave me their thoughts on the first part. Please let me know what you think on this one, I love getting any kind of feedback. 

Grayson opened his eyes as the earliest rays of sunlight trickled in through his window. He pushed himself out of his bed and began his morning routine in a daze: half asleep as he brushed his teeth and found a clean pair of underwear. His consciousness awoke during his daily piece of avocado toast, which he ate while enjoying the view from their kitchen window. In his groggy state, he left the plate at the table when he went to put a load of laundry in the washer. He took the liberty of moving Ethan’s clothes from the washer to the dryer and starting it for him.

Grayson retrieved his phone from his nightstand, opening twitter for a brief scroll. He and Ethan published their video about Ethan’s acne yesterday; twitter was not very pleased with them. Grayson’s jaw tightened as he read the accusations about him and his brother. Grayson forcefully planted his phone back on his nightstand. He ran his hands through his hair, thinking back to the long nights on the couch where he wrapped an arm around Ethan’s shoulder and consoled him through his journey towards self-love. Without opening it again, Grayson shoved his phone in his pocket before grabbing the keys to the van from on top of his dresser. Walking out of the house, he quickly scanned the entryway and living room. He stopped and went back to place his avocado toast plate into the sink, reminding himself to wash it when he got home. He scanned again, not seeing anything out of place. Silently, he wished Ethan sweet dreams from across the house and slipped out the front door.

His breath left him when he reached the shore at his favorite morning beach. His lips turned down, jaw tightening as he noticed that her footsteps laid in the sand before he arrived. “Of fucking course,” Grayson groaned softly before collapsing down to the ground. It wasn’t enough that his brother was being accused of ugly things by strangers, but he missed crossing paths with Kate for the first time in the two weeks since their nearly silent friendship started. He laid back on the sand, feeling thousands of tiny, jagged pieces creep under his shirt and into the waistband of his shorts.

For a fraction of a second, Grayson thought about grabbing his phone from his pocket and looking again at the comments. He stopped himself quickly. Taking a deep breath, he knew the best way to deal with this feeling was with Ethan by his side. Ethan grounded him. Ethan tethered him back to Earth. Ethan was the cautious, practical mind to Grayson’s own idealistic, fanciful one. Grayson thought about Ethan, at home and laying in his bed. He hoped his brother slept well and long. Poor Ethan was going to wake up to the same storm that greeted Grayson.

No, he’s not going to think about this, Grayson decided dwelling on this topic was no use without his brother. Grayson sat up, his eyes followed Kate’s footsteps all the way to the right and then all the way to the left. Why was he so excited to see her? She was just a girl. A pretty girl, sure. But Grayson had met lots of pretty girls over the years. Damn, Ethan was right…maybe Gray was getting desperate. Next thing you know, he would be writing love letters to the old lady at the grocery store check out counter.

Damning Ethan aside, Grayson was genuinely excited to see Kate. She had crossed his mind more than once during his morning drive. He didn’t know anything about her. Grayson looked down at her footprints again, the only sign that she had already crossed the shore. He squinted.

One footprint was deeper than the other. Odd. He reached over with his own thumb to make sure his eyes were not tricking him. Yup, one foot was a whole half-thumb deeper than the other. Maybe she wears weird shoes. He didn’t think long on this before kicking some sand into the footprint. He swung his shirt from his head and rested it beside him. He laid back. If he couldn’t surf, and he couldn’t talk to a pretty girl, the least he could do was work on his tan.

The sun felt good on his skin. His breathing slowed, and he found a serene inner quiet. On that early Thursday morning, on a secluded beach in Malibu, Grayson found a moment of peace. 

“You’re late” He grinned, feeling his face get warm.

“I thought you already left,” he opened his eyes to be greeted by her smile. “You do realize I have to walk back to get to my car right?” she chuckled and kicked off her sandals. She laid her purse in the sand and dropped to sit beside Grayson. He noted a sweet, citrus scent as she settled down on the sand.

“I guess I didn’t think about you having a car, you kind of just appeared here every day” “That’s fair, I’m probably just a figment of your imagination.” If it wasn’t for her laugh, Grayson would have considered that a possibility. “That is a possibility,” he chuckled, “why do you come out here anyways?”

She paused for a moment. Grayson noticed the sea breeze lift her dark locks from her shoulders. “I’m new to town,” she decided on. “Being stuck in my apartment during a pandemic, when I don’t know anyone around here gets real boring, real quick.” Grayson nodded in agreement. “What about you? I’m surprised you’re here without your board.”

Grayson sucked in a soft breath against his teeth, “I like being here. I mean, I like the beach. It’s a good place to get away, have a moment.” “Wow, that’s deep dude.” She looked at him with a glossy look in her eye and her lips pursed. Grayson looked back, feeling his cheeks get warm again. She threw her head back and let out a loud laugh. “I’m sorry. Sarcasm isn’t nice,” she said with a warm smile. Grayson shook his head softly and smiled at her, “I’m down with it.” Was that cringe? It sounded cringe. “But no, I really love the beach. I guess it’s my space to not have to think about the rest of the world.” “Hm..how California boy of you,” Grayson chuckled along with her this time. She was cute, the way she poked gentle fun at him. She was silly. “So you said you’re new here? where are you from?” She started “West Philadelphia born and raised, on the playground is where I spent most of my days” Grayson joined in “Chilin out maxin relaxin all cool, shooting some b-ball outside in the hood” They shared a warm laugh. Grayson grinned as she flashed him one of her bright smiles. “But really, where are you from?” He probed. She laughed, “West Philly, born and raised. Weren’t you listening?!” They giggled together.

“That’s cool,” he responded as his smile grew wider by the second. “I’m from just over the river in New Jersey.”

“Oh, so you’re not a native California boy. So tell me— how long do I have before the water gets to me and I turn into a blonde, Instagram goddess?” There she goes again, soft pokes. Kind of like kindergarten.

“I’m not sure. I’ve been here five years and I have yet to turn into a goddess if that means anything”

She laughed, “Well it’s good to know time is on my side.” She played with the brown leather band of a simple wristwatch. She looked down at the watch face and mumbled, “shit.” She started to gather her purse and sandals from the sand and stand as she said, “I’ve got to go. I’m going to be late for…something.” She wrestled her sandals onto her feet.

Grayson felt a wave of awkwardness wash over his body. Should he offer to walk her to the car? No, that’s too much. Should he ask what she’s going to be late for? Maybe that’s a little creepy.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” She pushed her hair behind her ears, looking down at Grayson on the ground. “Yeah I’ll be here tomorrow.” Grayson smiled shyly, more aware of his body language now than he had been for the past half hour.

She started to walk up the beach but looked back at him, “Don’t be late! Bye Grayson” His name sounded good coming out of her mouth.

”Bye Kate!” Shit, I should have asked for her number.

Once she was out of earshot, Grayson groaned out loud and threw a rock into the ocean. He watched the tiny, smooth thing pierce through the rough, complicated ocean surface. Grayson wiped the sand off his body as he stood up and started to walk back to his van.

When Grayson arrived home, he found Ethan at the counter, in his underwear, eating some cereal and dairy free milk. “You see twitter?” Ethan commented as Grayson put his keys down. For a small moment, Grayson had forgotten about the video fiasco. For a second, he had forgotten about every part of his place on the internet. His tough but clearly upset brother brought him back to reality. Grayson moved toward the counter and wrapped a familiar arm around Ethan’s shoulders.

 ***********

As Grayson settled into bed, later that same day, his mom called him. His mother asked if he and Ethan were willing to fly out to New Jersey to spend the weekend with her. His mother told him that his sister was coming for the weekend and she wanted all of her kids under the same roof for a few nights. Grayson told his mom that he and Ethan would make it out to Jersey for the weekend, wished her a good night, and said he loved her. Grayson used his phone to buy two plane tickets for Friday evening: tomorrow evening.

He thought about Kate. What if he doesn’t show up on Saturday and Kate thinks he’s not interested? Or mean? Or weird? Or a flake? And deep down, in a place he wasn’t ready to touch yet, he wanted more of her. He found solace in how different she was, so grounded and natural compared to his LA lifestyle. His own slice of New Jersey on a California beach.

He wanted to go back and talk to her every day, all day, until they both lost their voices and had to draw pictures in the sand to communicate. He had yet to separate these deep feelings from his general loneliness, it had been over a year since he was more than anyone’s ‘Netflix and Chill’. Ethan had taken to calling him desperate and urging Grayson to audition for the Bachelor. He pushed these thoughts aside, not having the emotional bandwidth to process this all right now. He was going to ask for her number. People still did that right? Maybe it had been too long for Grayson…

 **********

The next morning, Grayson felt the beach winds move through his loose muscle shirt. He ran a hand through his hair, still getting used to its new short form. He decided against sitting on the sand since he was not intending to be planted on the ground today.

The decision not to sit started his anxiety. He was changing their routine, what if she wasn’t okay with it? Why didn’t he think of this earlier? How long were they going to spend together? What if she was just being nice? What is it that she called herself? Yeah what if she was just being a kind stranger?

Once more, he ran a hand through his hair. He plunged both of his hands into his pockets to prevent any future hair touching. He took a deep breath in, listened to a wave break on the shore, and released the air from his lung. When he looked up, a dainty, happy figure was walking toward him. “Good Morning” she said sweetly. “Good Morning,” Grayson smiled and took his hands out of his pockets. Oh no, did he just mess up his outfit? “Would you believe this is the first time I’ve seen you standing up?” she placed a hand over her eyes to look up at his face against the light of the sun. “I promise I don’t usually spend a lot of time on my ass” Was that funny? That was supposed to be funny..

She took a moment to look him up and down. Her eyes locked on his. “I thought you’d be taller”

Grayson laughed heartily while she smiled with an accomplished look on her face. He quieted down and found a moment when they were just standing there, looking at each other. A happy Grayson let the moment hang in the air before saying, “Can I join you? I’m curious to see where this beach leads.” A half-truth. Kate smiled and nodded “Yeah, come along. But don’t be disappointed, it just leads to more beach.” Grayson already knew that, but he nodded along anyway, “Still, I feel like a walk” The pair started along the shoreline together. Grayson smelled her familiar sweet, citrus scent. He felt the sunshine down on his arms and the exposed parts of his back, energizing his entire body. Her bright eyes met his and they shared a smile. From a few yards away, they heard a peculiar, gulping noise. Grayson looked up while Kate pointed and laughed at a seagull attempting to eat an entire banana.

Once again, on that Malibu beach, early in the morning, Grayson found a rare moment of peace. He looked down, seeing his large footsteps align with her tiny ones. I should say something, I should say something. Grayson felt his face go hot again. Grayson gulped down again, shaking his palms subtly to dislodge the sweat coming to the surface of his skin. He looked down at her face, beaming brighter than the sun on that Friday morning.

Grayson looked down at their feet, watching her walk along the sand. He saw her right leg dig deep into the sand, gracefully holding her body up. Then, he saw her left leg meekly touch the surface of the sand before trading off duty to the other leg. The footprints…

“Did you hurt yourself?” Grayson gestured down to her left side.

She stiffened. Her shoulders fell back like a toy soldier; small and inviting but erect and ready. Grayson’s eyes wandered to her lips; her full pink mouth sat pursed above her chin. She let out a small breath before replying. “No…I have a bad leg.” Grayson heard the period at the end of the sentence. She was curt with her words, but not harsh.   “Oh, I’m sorry…” Was he sorry for asking? Or sorry that she had a bad leg? Well, he was sorry for both, so it didn’t really matter.

She nodded softly. Silence hung in the air around them. On one side of them, the ocean crashed into the shore. On the other side, an eerily quiet LA hid behind the cliffs. “Speaking of injuries,” she broke the silence, “how’s your foot?” “It’s doing better, “Grayson noted, “I’ll probably be back on my board by Monday.” Or maybe Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday… “well if you came out looking like that, I would hate to see the other guy,” she smiled sweetly at him, “even though he’s a pebble” she held in a small giggle. “Funny you say that, I’m leaving tonight to spend the weekend with my mom. I’m worried that I might meet a mean pinecone and injure the other foot,” Grayson joked. “I’ll be here if you’re in need of anymore emergency medicine” she quipped back. “Thanks for the offer,” he chuckled. “But I’m actually going home to Jersey for a few days, so I’ll be too far away for any in person care.” Grayson swallowed hard in his throat. “Could I have your number?”

Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. Was that funny? Did she like it? Did she like him? Was she just being polite? Was that okay? It probably wasn’t okay. He hadn’t done this for like a year and a half. Do people still use phone numbers? What if she says no, how does he play it off? He felt a single bead of sweat dance down his neck and meander its way down his back.

She looked at him. She really looked at him. She saw the diamond embeds on his canine teeth. She saw the silver chain on his neck, sparkling in the reflection of the sun. She saw the tattoos covering his legs. She saw his muscles bulging through his tank top. He was so LA, so very LA and yet he wasn’t. And that part of him that was so not LA, made her say “Yeah, of course you can.” A/N: Thank you for reading! I really appreciate it! I would love to get feedback on the length. I prefer to write in short pieces but edit them heavily before I post them. I can write longer parts but it will take more time. Also, I know the pacing is a slow so tell me how you do/don’t like that.  Thank you again for reading bb <3

[brewsterispunkk]

Snakes in The Garden

“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” -Oscar Wilde

Two

It was approximately two months after the British had left Philadelphia that Mrs. Hattie DuVall’s servant girl, Lucrecia, came to the Haptonstall’s house calling for Jo. No one called her that though, to everyone in the Haptonstall house, she was only Lucy.

The early-November sky was gray with the promise of upcoming rain, and the leaves were in full color--- though Jo would never have known it, as they were so far into the city that there was not a single tree for blocks. Even so, the turning of the leaves was something Jo missed so much from home that she took routine walks through the more forested sector of the city. It was on one of those said walks that Lucy first came looking for Jo. It wasn’t usual for her to come to her house  to see her, especially when she’d seen her at work just the day before.

Jo entered the front door of the house, cheeks rosy due to the exertion as well as the cold October wind. Inside, Eleanor had already sat down the young, dark girl and given her a cup of steaming liquid, probably a watered-down cup of coffee. That was all that was available during wartime. Tea was a luxury few could afford. 

But Lucy was alone, Aunt El having no doubt run off to do another chore around the house in the meantime. It seemed that there was never not something to do.

As Jo entered she smiled, stripping off her coat and hanging it up on a wooden hook on the wall next to the door. 

“Hello, Lucrecia, is everything alright? Did I forget something at the house yesterday?”

Her friend glared at her sarcasm. Lucy hated when anyone but her mother called her by her full name.

“You know I hate it when you use my full name.” Jo only laughed, shrugging. 

“And you know I don’t rightly care.” 

 While Jo still worked a few hours a week at McCoy’s Laundry, she’d recently taken up a position as a maid and part-time servant at the home of an affluent couple in Philadelphia, the DuValls. The position there paid better, and was a welcome change to the usual washing of Laundry day and night. She enjoyed the company better at the DuValls as well. 

“No, Miss Josephine,” Lucy replied, mocking the tone of their employer, “you did not leave anything at the house.”

Her aunt’s humming pulled Jo from their banter. Surely enough, Eleanor entered the room, hands full of what looked like a basket of clean laundry from the clothesline. She looked concerned, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

“What’s all of this ‘Miss Josephine’ I’m hearing?” Interjected Eleanor. “We won’t have any of that here. We are not above you, Luce, to you we’re just Jo and Eleanor. You know that, surely.” 

“Oh, c'mon Aunt El, you know we’re just playing.”

Eleanor huffed. “It’s not something to play about, if you ask me. You two may only say that as a jest, but you know how most other people see it. They think that we’re superior to them just because of our skin, and our ‘european-ness’ and--”

“Thank you, really, Ms. Haptonstall, but you really don’t have to--”

“Nonsense, young lady. I do. How I was raised, we’re taught that we’re all the same in God’s eyes. An evil thing, slavery is. My heart aches for how awful you and your people are treated because of it. My people and my husband’s were quakers, you know. Resented and saw it for the vile thing it is. Anyhow, you don’t have to worry about any of that here, not in my house. There’s nothing about me or Jo that makes us superior in any way, and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.”

“Thank you,” Lucy spoke softly, not quite able to say much more. 

“Yes, Lucy,” Jo stressed ‘Lucy’, “If anything you’re superior to us. To me, anyway. In your work you are, that’s for sure.” 

“Oh, you’re just being modest,” Lucy replied with a laugh, leaning on the table with an eyebrow raised. Jo scoffed. If anyone was being modest, it was Lucy. 

“Oh please, you know I cannot fold a napkin french-style for the life of me.”

Eleanor laughed, collecting the coffee cups and heading to the kitchen. Lucy stood up and Jo embraced her in a friendly hug. 

Lucy had played a key role in Jo’s success at Ms. Duvall’s. Having grown up in a small farming town, Jo was very unfamiliar with the Philadelphian way of life in general, nevertheless that of the upper class in the city; That was a different world entirely. But Lucy, who had been under the direct care of Ms. DuVall since she was a child, grew up fully immersed in high Philadelphia society, albeit in the background. So, in those early days working at the DuVall’s, Lucy was really the only reason Jo survived, and was able to keep her job there. 

“You’re not completely hopeless,” Lucy giggled. Jo rolled her eyes, casting her a disbelieving look, causing her friend to laugh harder.

“Oh, don’t lie to her, Lucy,” Eleanor boomed from the other room. “She can barely fold her own laundry!” 

This sent Lucy into hysterics. “Okay, maybe she’s not the best at folding the napkins. But that’s what you have me for.” 

Jo rolled her eyes as Lucy winked at her. Eleanor tisked at the two from the other room as they giggled. 

“You girls…” she mumbled, before raising her voice so that Lucy and Jo could hear her, “You know what the Lord says about giddiness, young ladies.”

This only encouraged their antics. It was good to be able to laugh again, so effortlessly. Jo couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed like that. It was small victories like that that kept her going. Especially during bleak months like these. Though the British were gone from the city, the war was far from gone.

Calming down a bit, Jo finally asked, “So what does bring you to this part of town?” 

The Haptonstalls’ neighborhood was not necessarily in the rich part of Philadelphia; Not where families like the Lawrences and Shippens lived. It wasn’t in the slums, by any means, but it wasn’t in the mansion sector either.

“Oh what, I can’t come and visit my dearest friend Miss Josephine Haptonstall for no reason?” Lucy cocked an eyebrow. Jo was unconvinced. 

“Okay fine. Ms. DuVall sent me. She’s having a party November 23rd. Short notice, I know, but you know how she is.” Jo did know how the woman was. She was very spontaneous, and once she got an idea into her head, there was no getting it out. 

Lucy sighed, “Anyway, she wants you to work it.” Jo’s brow furrowed. 

“But why?” She asked, “Why not ask Liz or Gwen or Rachel? Or you?” 

Lucy raised a brow, “You really think I’d be here if she hadn’t already asked me to work it? Anyway, are you really turning down work right now?” 

Jo shook her head, “No, not at all. I’m grateful for the opportunity. Truly, I am,” she said, taking Lucy’s hand. “I’m just confused is all. I thought she’d ask a few of the girls who’ve worked there longer before me.” 

“Jo,” Lucy stated. “Gwen, Liz, Rachel, and I are working the party.” Jo was even more confused now. If the DuValls were throwing a party in their own home, they would not need more than four servants in addition to their live-in staff to help serve their guests. Their home was large, but not that large. 

“And this gathering is happening in their house Friday? Why is she overhiring---” Lucy cut her off before she could continue. 

“That’s the other part, if you’d let me get one word in,” She pushed Jo’s shoulders to sit down at the table, hands on her hips. “DuVall’s co-hosting the party. With Miss Margaret Shippen, soon-to-be Mrs. Arnold. She’s engaged to General Benedict Arnold. Anyway, Miss Shippen is the daughter of one of the Ms’s friends, so of course she jumped at the opportunity to help throw such a thing. You know that woman cannot turn down a good party.”

“Did you mean the continental General Arnold?” Queried Jo. Lucy rolled her eyes. 

“Of course, you ninny. What, did you think the Ms. was gonna throw a party for a British officer? Besides, those lobster-backs have been gone for nearly a month now. Good riddance, too.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Jo countered lightly, “It’s just surprising. Ms. DuVall’s never been so...political before.”

Lucy raised her eyebrows, “What, throwing a party for the daughter of a friend is ‘political?’”

“Co-hosting a party at said ‘friend’s’ house. Besides, a patriot at that. It just seems unlike her to me.” 

“Huh,” Lucy said with a strange look on her face, setting her folded hands on the table, “You haven’t been here that long, so I wouldn’t expect you to know this, but it’s pretty common knowledge, I guessed I just assumed,” she stopped herself and shook her head, “then again, I have been living under the Ms’s roof for forever.”

“I know that, silly,” Jo laughed, “But what’s ‘common knowledge?’”

“It’s no secret around town that the Ms. is a patriot. Or rather, that she has strong patriot... leanings.” 

Jo was taken aback. That was something she hadn’t noticed. Then, it got her thinking. Things started to make sense now. How Ms. DuVall would always set down the pamphlet she was reading and cover it with her gloved hands whenever Jo or Gwen walked into the room, how she rarely left the house and never left the neighborhood during the British occupation.

 Looking at Lucy’s serious, freckled face, Jo noticed the hestiance in her gaze. She was being careful. Even though the British were gone, it was still wartime. You had to be careful who you let in. In Philadelphia of all places, you never knew who was a Tory and who was a Patriot.

Jo thought of a million different things she could have said, but all that came out of her parted lips was a simple,

 “Oh.”

“Yeah. oh.” Jo blinked. Lucy continued, “Look Jo, Ms. DuVall wasn’t political because she’s a turncoat or something like that, she’s always felt the way the rebels do. Even before the war began. She just couldn’t talk about it while the British were here. I remember back in ‘67 when I first arrived, we’d get stares as we walked down the street. People whispering things like ‘traitor’, or ‘bastard’. Or while at the dinner table, she and Mr DuVall would speak about the terrible things happening to people in Boston or York City at the hands of the crown. The reason she drinks coffee now is because back in ‘70, she began boycotting tea---because of the tax. Jo, she taught me to read. She didn’t agree with the king’s law. She’s been a rumored patriot for a long time.”

Jo didn’t know what to say, so she just stayed silent, absorbing it all. Lucy continued nervously.

“Look, I understand if you don’t want to. Work the party, I mean. If it’s--- if you don’t agree with her views--- but, really Jo, it’s a great opportunity and you’re one of the girls she asked for by name, and---”

“I’ll do it.”

“she’d really like to impress--- what?” 

“I’ll do it.” Jo’s sea-green eyes met Lucy’s deep brown ones. “I don’t have a single problem with her ‘principles’, and I do need the work. Besides, someone’s gotta keep an eye on you.”

A look of relief crossed Lucy’s soft features before she reached over to smack Jo’s  arm.

“Oh, you witch! You’re evil, Jo, do you know that? How dare you scare me like that! For a moment I thought you were a tory.” At this Jo grimaced. 

“No! I’d rather do Mr. DuVall’s dirty laundry every day for the rest of my life than be one of those soul-sucking lobsterbacks.”

This made both of the girls break into a fit of laughter once again. They both knew the torture it was to be the one responsible for cleaning the man’s clothes. To put it lightly, it was a less than pleasant experience. 

“So,” Jo said after awhile of laughter, “who else is working on friday? Rather than Miss Shippen’s servants, of course.”

“Oh,” A look of disdain came across Lucy’s face. “Care to guess who?” 

A hopeless look overtook Jo’s features, “No.” 

“Yes.”

“No,” Jo groaned, “Please don’t tell me you mean---”

“Patience,” They both said the girl’s name at the same time, groaning. 

Patience Deliverance Bell was the most insufferable little tart on this side of the rebel lines. She never actually went by ‘Patience’, she liked to be called Patty, and when anyone called her ‘Patience’ she threw a fit. Which is precisely why Lucy and Jo called her that. 

“If I have to listen to her go on and on and on about how handsome and accomplished and gentlemanly Rowan is, I’ll tear my hair out.” Lucy said, throwing her head back onto the back of the chair. Jo laughed, and feigned surprise.

“What?!” Jo asked, mimicking Patience’s high, heavily accented voice in the best way she could. “How dare the likes of you deny the accomplishments of a man such as Mr. Rowan.” 

Lucy looked at her with wide eyes, an amused look on her face, “A man? Please, Rowan’s barely a day over twenty. If I have to hear her rant one more time about how ‘graceful’ he is. I swear on my mother, Jo, I’ll box her ears. Or worse, my own.” 

Jo just laughed at her friend’s seriousness. 

“I’m serious,” Lucy proceeded. “I’ve known Rowan all my life, the last word I’d use to describe him is graceful. That boy is, and has always been, the most lanky person I know.” 

This was true. Lucy’s mother had grown up on the DuVall property, as a slave, and had remained there until she was freed by Ms. DuVall when Lucy was just six. It was at that time that the old Mr. Clarke, Ms. DuVall’s father, had passed away. Upon his death, as the man’s only child, Ms. DuVall was the one who inherited the property. She did once have a brother, Lucy had told Jo. A younger brother who was reckless and as a result was completely cut-off and disowned by his father. He hadn’t been heard of all that much since. Apparently, it had been quite the scandal. 

Rowan was the son of one of Mr. DuVall’s old University friends who’d died in the seven years’ war and became Mr. DuVall’s ward after that. He was about a year-and-a-half older than Lucy and made his fun by torturing her when they were children. In reality, they fought like siblings and Rowan, while away at University, concealed letters in those he sent to Ms. DuVall for Lucy, as they were taught to read together. Patience had worked alongside Lucy as a servant at the DuVall’s home since they were fourteen, and she’d been in love with Rowan for about that amount of time as well. She’d been a thorn in Lucy’s side for five long years. 

“I don’t know,” Jo said, “He’s filled out a bit since going to Yale. At least he had when I last saw him.” Lucy shrugged.

“Yes, I suppose.” Lucy said, a far-off look in her eyes. Jo could tell that being away from him for this long was bothering Lucy. She’d only seen the two interact on a few occasions, as she hadn’t worked for the DuValls for that long of a time. Even still, she could tell, though the two terrorized each other endlessly, they were best friends. Jo groaned again, remembering the Patience issue. White, hot anger shot through her chest at the thought of the girl.

“I swear, Lucy, if she even looks at you the wrong way, I’ll kill her---Gwen will too.” 

This made Lucy laugh, as she gave her an amused glance. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

“Hey! I’m stronger than I look! My brother Jonah and I wrestled all the time as kids, I know how to fight. My Pa taught us.”

Lucy laughed, patting her arm, “Oh, I believe you,” her eyes softened. “It’s just, if you try to kill everyone who’s said something like that to me, then you’d have a lot of work to do.”

Jo frowned. She remembered the event as if it were last week. Well, it was last week, but the anger inside her still burned as if it had happened today. Lucy was trying to correct a mistake that Patience and Rachel had made when putting away the crystal in the china cabinet, when Patience went off, calling Lucy the most foul type of names. Jo remembered hearing it from the other room.

‘Bastard, Voodoo Whore.’ were a few, along with some choice racial terms that Jo would rather not repeat.

 Upon hearing these terms, Jo had hurriedly walked into the other room, only to be met with a steel-faced Lucy and a wide-eyed Rachel. Patience’s face was red with anger and a sneer as she continued her verbal assault. And Lucy just sat there and took it. 

“Just who do you think you are, huh?” She’d drawled in her thick English accent, “Just because you’re the Mistress’s bastard dosen’t mean you get to order me around----”

She was cut off by the sound of  Lucy’s hand making contact with her cheek. Everyone in the room was silent for a moment, before Patience turned to Lucy, fuming. 

“You dare--”

Jo cut her off by pushing her backward, toward Rachel.

“Just shut up and leave, Patience!”

With a livid, embarrassed glare, Patience had stormed out of the room. Rachel swiped a strand of black hair from her face, before leaving as well. Lucy just continued staring ahead, before wiping her cheeks and pulling herself together. 

It was that day that Lucy had told Jo of the many rumors among the servants concerning who Lucy actually was. In truth, it was odd for a white woman with high standing, such as Ms. DuVall, to have a servant of color be so close to her. And Lucy was, quite obviously due to her lighter brown skin, freckles, and curly hair, a girl of mixed-race parentage--- people were bound to talk. Apparently, many people in the community and working in the home speculated that Lucy was Ms. DuVall’s bastard child, and she kept her on as the help to disguise it.

Lucy usually just wrote off their comments though, saying, “Believe me, though, if you take one look at my momma, there’ll be no doubt in your mind that I’m her child.” And it was true, Lucy was the spitting-image of her mother. 

Lucy’s explanation for Ms. DuVall’s affection toward her was this: Lucy’s mother, Priscilla, had grown up with Ms. DuVall, acting as her companion for most of her life. They were close, like sisters. Which is why Ms. DuVall freed Priscilla when she inherited her father’s estate, and is also why Ms. DuVall had always been so kind to Lucy and even let her call her by her first name, Hattie. And for Jo, that was enough of an explanation.

Jo was pulled from her memories by Lucy’s voice.

“Y’know.”

“Hmm?”

“I honestly do not think that the reason Patty hates me is because I’m black. I think it’s because of Rowan. She hates that I’m closer to him than she is.”

Jo snorted, “Well I could have told you that.” 

“Seriously, though, it makes sense, does it not?” Lucy continued.

“Of course it does, she’s a conniving bitch,” At this, Lucy laughed. 

A familiar voice coming from the kitchen caught their attention, as Eleanor appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, leaning on the door frame. 

“Prejudice is a plant often rooted in a vein of jealousy and pain,” she said in a soft voice. The two girls just watched her with indiscernible expressions, as if they’d just heard an ancient proverb in a long lost tongue. 

“Do you know who told me that?” Eleanor continued. Jo smirked.

“One of your Quaker preachers?”

Eleanor chuckled, “No. Your grandmother.” 

“Oma?”

“Oh yes,” she said, sitting down. 

“Your father’s mom?” Lucy looked at Jo, she only nodded, a small smile at her lips at the memory. 

“She was a wonderful woman.” Eleanor stood. “I see her in you, you know. And not just because of your hair or your middle name.”

Jo’s full name was Josephine Elizabeth Alma Maeve Haptonstall. A mouth-full, she knew. But her second middle name, Alma was the first name of her father, Abraham, and her Uncle Christian’s mother, who’d had red hair just like Jo and her siblings. 

“When I married your Uncle, in the town we lived in, there was much resentment towards my people, Quakers. Just because we were different, they hated us. I would be mocked, refused service, spit at. But your grandmother always told me that very proverb when things like that would happen.”

Jo just smiled. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Hapto---” Eleanor shot Lucy a look before she corrected herself, “Sorry, Eleanor.” 

“You’re very welcome, dear,” Eleanor replied with a smile, before glancing at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. “As much as we love you here, Luce, you do know that it’s nearly half-past six, right?”

Lucy’s eyes widened. “What?! Oh, Hattie’s going to be so angry at me! I have to go---sorry Jo----tell Roseanna and Mr. Christian I said hello! Bye!”

“Come back soon, dear!” Eleanor called after her, as the heavy oak door swung clumsily shut. 

“I still cannot believe what that wicked girl said to poor Lucy,” Eleanor said, taking a cloth to the table to clean off the coffee-rings from earlier that evening. Jo reached over to grab a spare rag, helping her. 

“I as well!” Jo replied, “I suppose she’s always been a bit pesky and self-centered, a few annoying backhanded comments here and there, but she’s never been such a downright bitch--”

“Josephine!”

“You were thinking it, too!” 

“Even so!” Eleanor said, laughing a bit to herself.

They continued for a few minutes in silence, each scrubbing down the table and respective counter, until Eleanor turned to Jo with an unimpressed look in her eyes, looking the girl up and down. She looked like she did whenever she assessed a room that Jo and Roseanna had just cleaned.

“You’ll need a new dress.” 

Jo looked at her aunt like she was mad, a light eyebrow raised.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“A new dress. You’ll need one.” 

Jo smirked, assuming her aunt was jesting. 

“Oh, right. And what am I to buy it with, my trust-fund? Or my grossly rich father? Or perhaps---” 

“This should be enough to cover it,” As Jo was rambling on, Eleanor had gone to the pantry and pulled out her hidden box of cash. Jo gaped. It’d had to be enough for an entire month’s worth of tea. 

“Nothing too fancy of course. You’re not attending the ball, but these old gowns of yours will never do. Something practical, a nice gray gown--- or perhaps a green! We could go to Madam Lew’s two blocks over---”

Josephine, still dumbfounded, wrapped her arms around her aunt, tears welling up in her eyes. As she pressed her face into her aunt’s shoulder, she could smell the fresh scent of newly washed linen, and a strange new feeling rose up inside her. 

“Thank you,” she uttered in a tone she hadn’t used since before the war. Her aunt cleared her throat, hugging her back. Obviously a bit uncomfortable at the display.  

“It’s nothing,” she said, “Besides we can’t have all the elite rebel militia thinking you live on the streets, huh?”

“No, really Aunt Eleanor, I don’t know what to---” 

“Oh! Enough of that! Come help me set this table. Your Uncle and Roseanna will be home any minute, and I want dinner to be on the table by then. Also---”

As her aunt’s voice faded out as she walked into the kitchen, Jo laughed. She recognized the feeling in her chest. It was something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Hope.

(A/N: here’s chapter 3! i love feedback, as always! all my love!!)

[nancypullen]

Where Is Home?

We talk about retirement a lot.  A LOT.  The mister wants out of the south because he hates the hot, sticky weather.  I want out of the south for a variety of different reasons.  He tears up when he thinks about leaving this house.  I get excited thinking of a house with better storage, maybe even a walk-in closet and a big pantry.  He loves the idea of townhouse living and all of the freedom it provides.  I love the idea of half a football field between me and a neighbor.  I wouldn’t mind being snug against a neighbor if we were in a walkable little town and I could have a white picket fence.  As we age into our golden years I want to be on city water and city sewer.  I do not want to be ninety when the well runs dry or the septic system has a fit.  Nope. No, thank you.  We have discussed towns from Maine to Arizona and are constantly trading articles about property taxes and real estate markets.  Night after night I search Zillow, Realtor, Trulia (oh, those handy dandy crime maps!) and so on.  I’ll send Mickey a house in Maryland to admire and mention that it’s just two hours from the world’s cutest grandgirl.  He responds that he loves it.  Then I send him a townhouse near Tucson and he says the same thing.  I’m getting nowhere with this guy. Side note: Yes, I know Arizona gets very hot, but it is not humid. HUGE difference. Also, Arizona has two enormous positives - we could escape allergies and my hair would behave.   If you had my hair you’d know that’s more important than the property taxes.  Two major negatives would be that it’s too far from family and I can’t imagine never experiencing another autumn. I’m happily willing to give the townhouse idea serious consideration.   I know that Mickey would love to never weed eat and edge another yard.  Remember the good old days when no one did that?  My main issue with townhouses is that they all tend to be multiple stories - sometimes three floors.  Wherever we retire, that’s where we’re going to die.  I don’t want to be unable to navigate my own home when I’m old.  Same reason I refuse to have a basement laundry, I don’t want to drag baskets of clothes up and down basement stairs when I’m a little old lady.  You know damn well a cat would trip me and Mickey wouldn’t miss me until he got hungry.  Of all the chores I’d be willing to expire while doing, laundry is not in the top three. We’re not lottery winners so our options are limited.  When we sell this house we’ll make a tasty profit that will allow us to find a comfortable home - nothing fancy, but we won’t be in a box under bridge.  I can make any home pretty, but the bones have to be good.  I’m more concerned with structure and mechanics.  Who needs a beautiful house with a bad roof or an hvac system on its last leg?   The region definitely determines what you get for your money.  For the same price you can have this sort of square footage in the south (complete with inground pool)...

or you can opt for proximity to Portland, Maine and get this.

The second house is new construction, but it’s itty bitty, has well water and septic, and is missing the all-important garage that we’d need up north.  This is a struggle, people.  We just want a nice little house in a nice little town, hopefully one that will meet our needs as we get older. Other items on our wish list?  Small town living with easy access to a larger city and a decent international airport.  Part of my hunt includes exploring each town’s library website (a vibrant, busy library says a lot about a place) as well as their Facebook page.  Looking past the mouthy keyboard warriors that lurk on every page, you can still get a good idea of the town’s vibe.  Let’s see - fair property taxes, decent cost of living, small town feel, good airport, seasons...sounds like we should stay put and just endure long, sticky summers, right?  Ugh, no.  Our reasons for wanting to relocate are so much more than just the summers.  Soooo, months and months of searching keep leading me to one state that ticks all of our boxes and then some.  Minnesota.  A myriad of cute towns surround Minneapolis and St. Paul, all with easy access to the fabulous airport.  I’m crazy about New Ulm (I love a town with lots of festivals) and I wouldn’t be heartbroken to live in Mankato, Owatonna, or a number of others.  Real estate is affordable, taxes are fair (and are used wisely!), all four seasons are present and accounted for, and quality of life seems really good - from healthcare to education to crime, they seem to have a handle on it.

and you knew there was a but, right?  We could happily move there knowing that we’d be close to at least one of our kids.  Matt lives in Minneapolis and the thought of having him nearby warms my heart.  But he’s weighing the pros and cons of an opportunity that would take him to the east coast and more likely to far flung parts of the world. It’s quite possible that he’d be gone in a flash and we’d be in Minnesota, once again far from family. Right now we’re a day’s drive from everyone except Matt. Truly, we could do it in a day but it would be a miserable thirteen to fourteen hours. I have scoured Maryland and settled on a little place called Ocean Pines.  It’s okay, a bit further than I’d like to be from airports, etc -  it’s between two to two and a half hours to Baltimore, D.C. or Philadelphia’s.  That also means it’s just two hours from my favorite little girl. That would be HEAVEN.  But who retires to one of the most expensive states to live in?  Would it make our golden years miserable?  Who wants to pinch pennies when you should be enjoying life?  HELP!!  Where is home?  I left Alaska more than twenty years ago, the mister was a Florida boy -  we don’t want to live in either place.  I love the prairie,  he loves the mountains.  At one point we were looking at real estate on Prince Edward Island  (affordable and gorgeous!) but Canada doesn’t want us. Seriously, we filled out the online immigration form.  We wouldn’t be able to live there year round  and I can’t imagine having to go squat across the border for a couple of months every year once we’re old and rickety.   There are pros and cons to every place we’ve looked.  No spot is perfect and we have to decide what we can and can’t live without.  If someone could just plop this house down next to my grandbaby I’ll shut up about this forever.

Imagine that house surrounded by hydrangeas in the summer.  I don’t think that’s too much to ask - just a little pink house near some people I love.  Some snow would be nice now and then. What a lovely dream. This boring blog post has been brought to you courtesy of my latest level of boredom.  It was either this or go dust the bedrooms, so you had to pay the price for my laziness.   My plan for this evening is to watch the Golden Globes and through that maybe find something interesting to watch.  We’re approaching the first anniversary of when we locked down here on the Pullen spread and we’ve run out of shows to binge.  Remember how naïve we all were when we thought we’d watch Tiger King and then lockdown would be over?  At least we’re headed in the right direction now.  That’s something.  I’m thrilled that my mother is fully vaccinated and so is Dr. Matt.  A handful of my dear friends are also protected now.  I’ve lost some friends to this horrible virus, including the husband of a dear Rat Patrol member.  Our little group now includes a widow for the first time. There’s been so much heartbreak over the last year.  I’m ready for it to stop. Okay - what a crazy, rambling post.  I think I’ll go dust.  It’s probably more productive.  If you’re still here, you deserve a cookie.  Treat yourself!  If you happen to know of the perfect town (I really just want to live in Stars Hollow) send me a message!  I’ll put my dust rag down and check it out! Sending out lots of love on this drippy Saturday. Stay safe, stay well, stay sane. XOXO - Nancy

[teaspoon-of-salt]

(full article under cut:)

The scariest day of Maria Del Carmen’s life started with a phone call that initially cheered her up.

A native of Mexico, she has spent the last 24 years as a housekeeper in Philadelphia and had a dozen regular clients before the pandemic began. By April, she had three. Food banks became essential to feeding herself and her three children. To earn extra money, she started selling face masks stitched on her sewing machine.

So in mid-August, when a once-regular client — a pair of professors from the University of Pennsylvania and their children — asked her to come and clean, she was delighted. No one was home when she arrived, which seemed like a wise precaution, given social distancing guidelines. What struck her as odd were the three bottles of Lysol on the dining room table. She had a routine at every home, and it had never involved disinfectant.

Ms. Del Carmen started scrubbing, doing laundry and ironing. After a few hours, she stepped outside to throw away some garbage. A neighbor spotted her and all but shrieked: “Maria, what are you doing here?!” The professors and their children, the neighbor said, had all contracted the coronavirus.

“I was terrified,” Ms. Del Carmen recalled. “I started crying. Then I went home, took off all of my clothing, showered, got in bed, and for the next night and the next day, I waited for the coronavirus.”

She never got sick, but she still is livid. At 58 and, by her account, overweight, she considers herself at high risk. That is why she never took off her mask while cleaning that day — diligence she thinks might have saved her life.

“There are a lot of people who don’t want to disinfect their own homes,” she said, “so they call a housekeeper.”

The pandemic has had devastating consequences for a wide variety of occupations, but housekeepers have been among the hardest hit. Seventy-two percent of them reported that they had lost all of their clients by the first week of April, according to a survey by the National Domestic Workers Alliance. The fortunate had employers who continued to pay them. The unlucky called or texted their employers and heard nothing back. They weren’t laid off so much as ghosted, en masse.

Since July, hours have started picking up, though far short of pre-pandemic levels, and often for lower wages.

“We plateaued at about 40 percent employment in our surveys of members,” said Ai-jen Poo, executive director of the alliance. “And because most of these people are undocumented, they have not received any kind of government relief. We’re talking about a full-blown humanitarian crisis, a Depression-level situation for this work force.”

The ordeal of housekeepers is a case study in the wildly unequal ways that the pandemic has inflicted suffering. Their pay dwindled, in many cases, because employers left for vacation homes or because those employers could work from home and didn’t want visitors. Few housekeepers have much in the way of savings, let alone shares of stock, which means they are scrabbling for dollars as the wealthiest of their clients are prospering courtesy of the recent bull market.

In a dozen interviews, housekeepers in a handful of cities across the country described their feelings of fear and desperation over the last six months. A few said the pain had been alleviated by acts of generosity, mostly advances for future work. Far more said they were suspended, or perhaps fired, without so much as a conversation.

Scrubbing a fluffy little dog named Bobby

One of them is Vicenta, a 42-year-old native of Mexico who lives in Los Angeles, and who, like many contacted for this article, did not want her last name used because she is undocumented.

For 10 years, she had earned $2,000 a month cleaning two opulent homes in gated communities in Malibu, Calif. This included several exhausting weeks in 2018, when fires raged close enough to cover both homes in ash. Three times a week, she would visit both houses and scrub ash off floors, windows, walls and, for one family, a fluffy little dog named Bobby.

Vicenta received nothing extra for the added time it took to scour those houses during the fires. She would have settled for a glass of water, she said, but neither family offered one.

“It was incredibly hot, and my mouth and throat were really sore,” she recalled. “I should have seen a doctor, but we don’t have health insurance.”

If Vicenta thought her years of service had banked some good will, she was wrong. Early in May, both families called and left a message with her 16-year-old son, explaining that for the time being, she could not visit and clean. There was some vague talk about eventually asking her to return, but messages she left with the families for clarification went unreturned.

“Mostly, I feel really sad,” Vicenta said. “My children were born here, so they get coupons for food, but my husband lost his job as a prep cook in a restaurant last year and we are three months behind on rent. I don’t know what will happen next.”

Housekeepers have long had a uniquely precarious foothold in the U.S. labor market. Many people still refer to them as “the help,” which makes the job sound like something far less than an occupation. The Economic Policy Institute found that the country’s 2.2 million domestic workers — a group that includes housekeepers, child care workers and home health care aides — earn an average of $12.01 an hour and are three times as likely to live in poverty than other hourly workers. Few have benefits that are common in the American work force, like sick leave, health insurance, formal contracts or protection against unfair dismissal.

‘A treadmill life’

This underclass status can be traced as far back as the 1800s, historians say, and is squarely rooted in racism. Domestic work was then one of the few ways that Black women could earn money, and well into the 20th century, most of those women lived in the South. During the Jim Crow era, they were powerless and exploited. Far from the happy “mammy” found in popular culture like “Gone With the Wind,” these women were mistreated and overworked. In 1912, a publication called The Independent ran an essay by a woman identified only as a “Negro Nurse,” who described 14-hour workdays, seven days a week, for $10 a month.

“I live a treadmill life,” she wrote. “I see my own children only when they happen to see me on the streets.”

In 1935, the federal government all but codified the grim conditions of domestic work with the passage of the Social Security Act. The law was the crowning achievement of the New Deal, providing retirement benefits as well as the country’s first national unemployment compensation program — a safety net that was invaluable during the Depression. But the act excluded two categories of employment: domestic workers and agricultural laborers, jobs that were most essential to Black women and Black men, respectively.

The few Black people invited to weigh in on the bill pointed out the obvious. In February 1935, Charles Hamilton Houston, then special counsel to the N.A.A.C.P., testified before the Senate Finance Committee and said that from the viewpoint of Black people, the bill “looks like a sieve with the holes just big enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through.”

The historian Mary Poole, author of “The Segregated Origins of Social Security,” sifted through notes, diaries and transcripts created during the passage of the act and found that Black people were excluded not because white Southerners in control of Congress at the time insisted on it. The truth was more troubling, and more nuanced. Members of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration — most notably, the Treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau Jr. — persuaded congressional leaders that the law would be far simpler to administer, and therefore far more likely to succeed, if the two occupations were left out of the bill.

In the years that followed, Black domestic workers were consistently at the mercy of white employers. In cities like New York, African-American women lined up at spots along certain streets, carrying a paper bag filled with work clothes, waiting for white housewives to offer them work, often for an hour or two, sometimes for the day. A reporter, Marvel Cooke, and an activist, Ella Baker, wrote a series of articles in 1935 for The Crisis, the journal of the N.A.A.C.P., describing life in what they called New York City’s “slave markets.”

The markets’ popularity diminished in the ’40s after Mayor Fiorello La Guardia opened hiring halls, where contracts were signed laying out terms for day labor arrangements. But in early 1950, Ms. Cooke found the markets in New York City were bustling again. In a series of first-person dispatches, she joined the “paper bag brigades” and went undercover to describe life for the Black women who stood in front of the Woolworths on 170th Street.

“That is the Bronx Slave Market,” she wrote in The Daily Compass in January 1950, “where Negro women wait, in rain or shine, in bitter cold or under broiling sun, to be hired by local housewives looking for bargains in human labor.”

That same year, domestic work was finally added to the Social Security Act, and by the 1970s it had been added to federal legislation intended to protect laborers, including the Fair Labor Standards Act. African-American women had won many of those protections by organizing, though by the 1980s, they had moved into other occupations and were largely replaced by women from South and Central America as well as the Caribbean.

A total lack of leverage

Today, many housekeepers are undocumented and either don’t know about their rights or are afraid to assert them. The sort of grass-roots organizations that tried to eradicate New York City’s “slave markets” are lobbying for state laws to protect domestic work. Nine states have domestic workers’ rights laws on the book. Last summer, Senator Kamala Harris introduced the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, which would guarantee a minimum wage and overtime pay, along with protections against racial discrimination. The bill has yet to pass, and if it did, labor advocates and historians say it would merely be a beginning.

“It’s important to get a federal bill, but it leaves unanswered the question of enforcement,” said Premilla Nadasen, the author of “Household Workers Unite” and a professor of history at Barnard College. “The Department of Labor is overextended and it tends not to check up on individual employers. The imbalance of power between employer and employee has been magnified by the pandemic because millions of people are now looking for work. And xenophobic rhetoric has made women more fearful of being deported.”

The pandemic has laid bare not just the vulnerability of housekeepers to economic shocks but their total lack of leverage. Several workers said they had clients who would not let anyone clean who has had Covid-19; others know clients who will hire only Covid survivors, on the theory that after their recovery, they pose no health risk. Housekeepers are often given strict instructions about how they can commute, and are quizzed about whether and how much they interact with others. But they have no idea whether their employers are taking similar precautions. Nor, in many cases, are they accorded the simple decencies that are part of formal employment.

“It would be nice to have at least two days’ notice when someone cancels on you, either to let you know or compensate you for your time,” said Magdalena Zylinska, a housekeeper in Chicago who helped lobby for a domestic workers’ rights bill that passed in Illinois in 2017. “I think a lot of people don’t realize that if I don’t work, I don’t get paid and I still have to buy food, pay bills, utilities.”

Ms. Zylinska emigrated from Poland more than 20 years ago and has yet to get a week of paid vacation. The closest she came was in 1997, when a couple handed her $900 in cash, all at once — for work she’d just finished, work she would soon do, plus a holiday bonus.

“The couple said, ‘Merry Christmas, Maggie,’” she said. “I remember counting that money four times.”

[leocallauber]

Leonardo Callaway(Gavin Leatherwood ) is a 17 year old Junior student at Broadripple Academy. He is originally from Philadelphia, PA but moved to Broadripple 3 years ago. He is Energetic and Loyal but can also be Snarky and Unforgiving.

@ba-central​

Name: Leonardo Callaway

Nickname: Leo, Leon, Anything but Leonardo

Age: 17

Birthday: March 21st, 2003

Grade: Junior

House Team: Melleray

Junior Cabin room 2

Now for the fun stuff lol

Leon is a complete and utter history buff. He love’s it. It is the only kind of class he truly enjoys.

He might be smart with history but he’s definitely got that chaotic dumbass energy. One time he tried to eat his weight in gummy worms. Another time he tried to microwave a chicken patty, but instead of 20 seconds. He put it in for 20 Minutes. Broke the plate and had a hockey puck for lunch.

He used to be a total mommas boy. Especially after his mom caught his dad cheating and he went to live with her. Unfortunately, his mom died a few months after and he moved to his dad’s. That did not go over well. A lot of family tension. He put sardines in his dad’s finances shoes when she told him to call her mom.

He has this whole thing about thinking “what would my dad do?” and then trying to do the exact opposite.

He dose not have good impulse control at all. Leap first think later. He lacks common sense at times to. Both things he’s working on but generally isn't making a whole lot of progress. 

He loves animals. He had a fish in his dorm he named cat. He misses cat a lot.  

He tends to hold grudges for a long time. He’ll say he’s forgiven you but then you’ll hear about it two days later. 

Character Aesthetics: bare feet in the mornings, overflowing laundry baskets, oversize hoodies, missed calls at 2am, the smell of rain, too many tabs, unfinished books, warm tea, soft pillows, strawberries and cream. 

Wanted Connections

We planned out our hypothetical apocalypse survival plan together but now I hear you have one with someone else, did I mean nothing to you?

We were best friends but then you hurt me somehow and now I can’t stand you

We’re friends but it’s a really toxic relationship made up of trying to one-up each other all the time

We hate each other’s guts but we always hook up when we’re drunk

secret friends, aka friends who do not hang around in the public eye as their family or friends may not get along.

life long enemies, aka two people who have been enemies ever since they remember but have forgotten the reason for their dislike.

share a secret, aka two people who have a giant secret together but are constantly afraid the other will rat them out.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE RETREAT

What do they think about The Retreat?

Leo is not really looking forward to the retreat. He misses his coffee machine and has never been much of a camper. He is, however, a big fan of bonfires and loves that aspect of it. 

Do they have any previous experience with camping or other outdoors?

Leo’s been camping in the mountains a few times but hasn’t been for a few years. He dose have plenty of experience building fires though. Mostly bonfires, but hey, sorta counts. 

What does their cabin bunk look like? How will they decorate their space?

His bunk tends to be a mess. He wasn’t very organized at the dorms and he’s not very organized here. He dose try to keep up the appearance of a mess free space. Leo has a picture of his old fish cat on the wall. And he has a poster Of Jim halpert looking at the camera.  

Do they believe in the supernatural? To what degree?

Leo 100% believes in the supernatural. He’s into all that cryptid stuff and is partially convinced he’s gonna run into  a wendigo or something on this retreat.

Are they easily spooked?

Leo is pretty easily spooked. It’s a bit of a problem really. 

AND FINALLY,

A very dumb but (hopefully) fun quiz made by your admins, please share what result you got

You will sacrifice yourself for someone else You’re one of the purer hearts of broadripple, you may not even know the person you sacrifice yourself for that well but you think its the right thing to do. and maybe it is. but would they do the same thing for you?

[thewritingstar]

1-200 we're all in quarantine so got nothing to do. Might as well ask pls

oo anon you were gonna ask anyways lol. But I did this hella quick during a zoom.....

1. What is your middle name?

-Rose

2. Do you have any nicknames that aren’t derived from your actual name?

-Star

2. Do you have any allergies?

-Penicillin (not really thou), but no

4. What is the longest your hair has ever been?

-Lower back

5. How well can you write in cursive?

-Its readable

6. Name one item on your bucket list.

-Going to all the Disney parks in the world

7. Have you ever been on a blind date?

-haven’t even been on a real date

8. What is the oldest piece of clothing you still wear and how old is it?

-prob like five years ago and its jeans

9. How often do you eat out at a fancy restaurant?

-nothing like I have to dress up but maybe once a year??

10. How grammatically correct are you when you text?

-rules don’t apply in text

11. Can you drive stick?

-hell no

12. What foreign country would you most like to visit and why?

-japan because I think it would be so cool

13. Nutella or peanut butter?

-NUTELLA

14. At what age did you have your first kiss?

-...............ahahhahahh

15. DC or Marvel?

-DC. Harley Quinn owns my ass

16. Have you ever hosted a wild party?

-my parties consist of drinking capri suns and playing cards against humanity and Mario kart

17. Name/author of the last book you read cover to cover. Do you recommend it?

-...ooof haven’t read a book in a while

18. How many of your Facebook friends do you actually hang with?

-my mom

19. Have you ever donated blood?

-I was apart of a cancer study so I used to donate my blood (and pee) to science

20. From 1-10, how much do you like decorating for holidays?

-8 I love to decorate but I’m not allow near the Christmas trees

21. Coffee or tea?

-vaniila iced lattes or raspberry ice tea own me

22. What is your go-to Starbucks drink?

-Vanilla bean frap with extra vanilla

23. Last show you binge watched?

-currently its assassination classroom

24. Dogs or cats?

-puppy’s

25. Favorite animated Disney character?

-Jessica Rabbit, Dumbo, Rey, Tamatoa and Guedo

26. Have you ever cooked a big family meal by yourself?

-mostly baking for my family

27. Favorite winter activity?

-Staying inside

28. Have you ever butt dialed anyone?

-probably

29. Can you blow a bubble gum bubble?

-yes

30. How early in the year do you start celebrating Christmas?

-my mom plays Xmas music year round

31. What emoji best describes your life right now?

-the wilting rose

32. Are you fluent in more than one language?

-nope

33. What is the longest you’ve ever kept a New Year’s resolution?

-I don’t make them

34. Have you ever successfully been on a diet? Did you gain any of the weight back?

-I’m on a diet to gain weight and its not going well

35. Are any of your grandparents still alive?

-only on my moms side

36. How good are you at communicating through facial expressions?

-hahaha my face gives everything away and I can read people pretty well

37. Have you ever gotten a commercial jingle stuck in your head?

-EDUCATION CONNECTION! Get connected for free

38. Have you ever left a movie theater before the movie was over?

-Nope

39. Do you consider rapping singing?

-rapping is in its own ballpark...its why its called rapping

40. Does your home have a fireplace?

Yep

41. Favorite non-chocolate candy?

-sour gummies worms

42. If you could have only one superpower, what would you want and why?

-oooof ummmmmm maybe teleportation

43. Have you ever locked your keys in your car?

44. Do you listen to any religious music?

-noooooooooo

45. Do you drink soda? If so, which one is your favorite?

-I hate soda

46. What was your ACT score?

-do not do me like this (21)

47. Rice or quinoa?

-rice

48. From 1-10, how good of a driver do you consider yourself?

-like an 8

49. Do you like horror movies?

-nope

50. How easily do you cry?

-uh depends on what it is

51. Do you have any tattoos? If so, of what and where?

-no but I want some

52. You are hanging with your closest friends. What are you most likely doing?

-being dumb and quoting tik toks at target

53. Can you handle spicy foods? What is your spice limit?

-not very well

54. Can you play any musical instruments? If so, which ones?

-no

55. Are you more introverted or extroverted?

-middle of the road

56. Last CD you bought?

-Folklore by Taylor Swift

57. Do you like roller coasters?

-yessss but they cant be extremely tall

58. What day of the week is laundry day for you?

-uhhh depends on when I have time

59. Have you ever played spin the bottle?

-uh maybe once but I was in fourth grade and walked away

60. How long have you known your best friend?

-I’ve known my bestie for 16 years (met when we were 4)

61. Can you eat using chopsticks?

-yes!! I usually eat my Chinese food with them

62. Do you have any stickers on your laptop computer? If so, what are they of?

-no because I need to get a case for my iMac and iPad

63. How often do you say y'all?

-every fucking day. Y’all is my go too

64. Favorite flavor of ice cream?

-cookie dough, pralines and cream, blue raspberry sherbert, vanilla, coffee

65. How long was your longest relationship? Are you still with that person?

-my longest relationship was like three weeks in fourth grade with my friends cousin who I saw twice

66. Star Trek or Star Wars?

-haven’t seen either but prob Star Wars cause r2d2 is cute

67. How good are you at math?

-ehhh I’m okay at stats

68. Have you ever acted in a play or a musical?

-used to do the plays in middle school :)

69. How often do you read/pay attention to your horoscope?

-not much my horoscope but just my sign in general

70. What is the shortest your hair has ever been?

-just above my shoulders

71. Have you ever broken any bones?

-my big toe

72. Do you like to go fishing?

-nooooooo I went fishing once and it pooped on me

73. Do you believe in evolution?

-of course

74. Favorite costume you wore for Hallowen? How old were you?

-I was perry the platypus…. 19

75. Real or fake Christmas trees?

-fake!!! WHO WANTS TO CLEAN THAT UP???

76. How many pillows do you sleep with?

-usually 1-2 but like 5 in the winter

77. Do you live in an apartment or a house?

-House rn

78. How many of your friends are of the opposite gender?

-in my close circle, one but I do have many boy homies

79. Have you ever had a near-death experience?

-many times

80. How long have you been at your current job?

-four weeks

81. What kind of car do you drive (year, brand, model, color)?

-white car

82. How flexible are you?

-not super but mama can bend

83. Have you ever ended a romantic relationship?

-haven’t even started one

84. Phrase you say the most?

-“I’m uncomfortable” “Y’all” “I would let J.D from heathers…..”

85. Have you ever kissed anyone of the same gender? If so, did you like it?

-no but I wish

86. Do you own any homemade clothing?

-not that I know of

87. Do you like fast food?

-yessss

88. Have you ever given anyone CPR?

-nope

89. Have you ever learned to do anything from a how-to video on YouTube?

-I fixed my moms glasses yesterday with a video so she wouldn’t have to spend a shit ton of money

90. Describe your sense of humor.

-if Always Sunny in Philadelphia and “vine comp that butters my eggroll” had a baby

92. Favorite cereal?

-no

93. Have you ever auditioned for a reality competition show?

-no

94. Have you ever gotten a TV theme song stuck in your head?

-Sugar, spice and everything nice, these were the ingredients…….

95. Do you believe in ghosts?

-indifferent

96. Do you think there is life on other planets?

-hell yeah

97. Have you ever given money to a street performer?

-yep

98. Your deepest fear?

-lets not go there

99. Pancakes or waffles?

-waffles but I don’t even like them that much

100. Are you still friends with anyone from high school?

-yep, my friend circle dates back to elementary

101. From 1-10, how good of a dancer do you consider yourself?

-7

102. How much of a patient person are you?

-I can be extremely patient. Once waited three hours in a dressing room with my friend and I didn’t have a phone

103. Do you know your IQ?

-no but its prob god level

104. Do you eat meat at all?

-mama loves meat

105. Do you own any clothes from a garage sale or a thrift store?

-I think so

106. Have you ever bought anything from a flea market?

-yess my mom used to take me to flea markets all the time

107. Have you ever quit a job?

-early this year

108. Have you ever gotten a song you dislike stuck in your head?

-many times

109. Any movie(s) you can watch over and over and over again and enjoy just as much each time?

-robots to ratatouille

110. Do you or have you ever worn glasses?

-just sun glasses

111. Have you ever skinny dipped?

-when I was like 6

112. Are your birth parents still together?

-yep

113. Have you ever been in the audience for the taping of a TV show?

-not that I know of

114. Favorite type of cookie?

-chocolate chip or the sugar cookies with the pink frosting on them (I’m a whore for them)

115. Have you ever been broken up with?

-nope

116. How often do you smile when getting your picture taken?

-most of the time

117. Have you ever accidentally dialed 911?

-yes I have and I was 6 and bullied for it for years by my uncle even though my cousins tricked me into doing it

118. Oldest memory?

-throwing a chair at a kid in preschool for stealing my cookie

119. Have you ever been the victim of a nasty prank?

-nope

120. How often do you snort when you laugh?

-uhhhh a lot

121. From 1-10, how good of a singer do you consider yourself?

-5

122. Favorite Disney song?

-uuuuuuhhh Shiny, See the Light, Why Don’t you Do Right, Show Yourself

123. Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

-hopefully in la

124. What is your Myers-Briggs personality type?

-I’m an advocate

125. Have you ever had a fortune cookie fortune come true?

-I think so

126. Name one thing you wish people would stop posting on social media.

-fascist, racist, homophobia stuff

127. Last musical artist you saw live?

-Jonas brothers

128. Credit cards or cash?

-cash cause I feel like I didn’t spend anything

129. Favorite fandom?

-the powderpuff girls or fairy tail

130. What is your astrological sign?

-Aries

131. Have you ever been fired from a job?

-nope I’m a good noodle

132. Any hidden talents?

-I can do the cinnamon challenge

133. Can you surf?

-nope

134. What motivates you to do well in life?

-the fear of failure

135. Your worst physical feature?

-my acne

136. From 1-10, how much are you like your father?

-mehhhhhhhh like a 4

137. How lucky do you consider yourself?

-I’m a pretty lucky person ngl

138. Name a moment in your life when you were pleasently surprised.

-when I won a coffee maker at my senior grad night raffle

139. Have you ever been summoned for jury duty?

-nope

140. What type of shoes do you wear the most?

-my converse

141. Favorite summer activity?

-getting coffee

142. Favorite song to sing in the shower?

-any Taylor swift song

143. Have you ever lived with a roommate you did not get along with?

-my parents sometimes

144. Have you ever lived on a farm?

-my grandparents owned a cherry farm when I was little

145. Have you ever kept a diary or a journal?

-tumblr is my diary

146. TV show or movie you quote/reference the most?

-Always Sunny, The Office, Gotham

147. How often do you get mad at yourself?

-constantly

148. Have you ever gotten any stitches?

-only in animal crossing (he’s so cute)

149. Have you ever been hunting?

-no

150. Favorite YouTube channel?

-Jenna marbles, try guys, mukbang edit channel, drama channels

151. Have you ever had a pet besides a dog or a cat?

-I had a mouse once

152. From 1-10, how well do you work with others?

-9

153. Are you friends with any of your exes?

-I don’t got exes

154. Apple or PC?

-I have an Apple Mac rn but I think I loved my pc so much so I’m getting used to the format

155. Do you collect anything?

-what don’t I collect? Funko, pins, so much stuff

156. Have you ever seen any Broadway plays or musicals?

-I saw Newsies and A Music chorus

157. Any missed opporunites you wish you had taken?

-I’m not too sure

158. Have you ever uttered a spoken hashtag?

-yes

159. Do you have a pool at your house?

-nope

160. What is the longest you’ve gone without sleep?

-like 24 hours and it was hell

161. Last thing that made you laugh?

-a meme 20 sec ago

162. Disney or Nickelodeon?

-Disney

163. Name one celebrity you wish was still alive.

-Billy Mays (Oxyclean dude)

164. From 1-10, how much are you like your mother?

-maybe a 6

165. Your best physical feature?

-my hair

166. Earbud or earmuff headphones?

-earbud

167. Have you ever wished you were born the opposite gender?

-..hmmmm sometimes I think it would be cool but I’m pretty content with being a girl...

168. Do you have any piercings anywhere besides your ear lobes?

-my nose

169. How often do you wash your hair?

-every other day usually

170. Showers or baths?

-I love a good bath but I take showers more

171. Have you ever been a bridesmaid or a groomsman?

-noooo but I wanna be

172. Bottled or tap water?

-bottle

173. What was your favorite TV show when you were a kid?

POWERPUFF GIRLS

174. Any guilty pleasures you’re willing to discuss?

-watching glee

175. Favorite video game?

-Mario kart

176. Have you ever gotten a New Year’s kiss exactly at midnight?

-nooooo why are there so many questions about kissing

177. How many of the United States have you visited?

-four, ive passed over a few more in a plane

178. Have you ever given money to a homeless person?

-yes

179. Have you ever gotten a surgery?

-no

180. Your least favorite food?

-cheese

181. From 1-10, how competitive are you?

-depends. I’m like a 6 but I can be pushed to a 10 when motivated

182. Do you like wearing hats?

-only a snap back occasionally

183. How much of a jealous peron are you?

-ehh not really

184. What was your SAT score?

-900-1100 (stop nationwide testing doesn’t work and I didn’t learn eveything)

185. Have you ever voted for a reality competition show?

-no

186. Does anyone in your family currently serve in your country’s military?

-my cousin

187. Snowboarding or skiing?

-I don’t do snow

188. What celebrity would you most want to play you in a movie about your life?

-jack black

189. Have you ever been a Boy or Girl Scout?

-hell no

190. Have you ever dyed your hair?

-many times

191. From 1-10, how good of a cook do you consider yourself?

-7

192. You have just opened up a web browser. What is the first site you visit?

-this cursed site

193. How many things can you do with your weaker hand?

-a lot

194. Were you involved in any academic clubs in high school?

-honors i guess

195. Have you ever played hooky from school?

-like twice

196. Are you comfortable with watching rated R movies?

—-not with my parents

197. Do you root for any sports teams?

-bold of you to assume i do sport

198. First thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

-pee

199. If you could take home any one animal from the zoo, which one would you choose?

-a lizard

200. Tell something about yourself most people don’t know.

-uhhh ummmm (I have a tik tok with 7.5k followers)